Strikes Are ‘Extremely Unlikely’ to Deter Houthis, Experts Say

The American-led airstrikes in Yemen on Friday could play into the agenda of the Houthis, the Iran-backed militia that rules much of northern Yemen, and are unlikely to stop the group’s campaign of attacking commercial ships, scholars who study the group said.

“This was not a miscalculation by the Houthis,” said Hannah Porter, a senior research officer at ARK Group, a British company that works in international development. “This was the goal. They hope to see an expanded regional war, and they are eager to be on the front lines of that war.”

Within hours of the strikes, a senior Houthi official said that the United States and Britain, which joined the strikes along with some other American allies, would soon realize that they had engaged in “the biggest folly in their history.”

“Yemen is not an easy military opponent that can be subdued quickly,” the official, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, said in a post on the social media platform X. “It is ready to enter a long-term battle that will change the direction of the region and the world.”

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