THE HUTHIS AND THE "AXIS OF RESISTANCE": THE GAZA WAR IN THE RED SEA
Gudrun Harrer in conversation with Stephan Reiner and Alexander Weissenburger
THE HUTHIS AND THE "AXIS OF RESISTANCE": THE GAZA WAR IN THE RED SEA
Despite the intervention of a Saudi-led coalition for nine years, the Houthi movement has remained in power in the north-west of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa. The Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October and the subsequent Gaza war gave the Houthis the opportunity to make a name for themselves beyond the Yemen conflict: Their missile and drone attacks in the Red Sea are increasingly jeopardising global merchant shipping. However, the population in the areas controlled by the Houthis, weary from humanitarian crises, destruction, isolation and the war economy, appears to support their involvement alongside Hamas. Will this further consolidate the movement's rule?
Stephan Reiner was at the Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management from 2019 to 2023 and now works at the Armed Forces Language Institute. After graduating from the military academy in 1998, he was deployed in air defence and regularly spent time abroad. Reiner later worked in Austrian security policy, specialising in the Near and Middle East. He studied Oriental Studies and Islamic Studies and spent research periods on the Arabian Peninsula.
Alexander Weissenburger is an associate researcher at the Institute of Social Anthropology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). He studied Islamic Studies at the University of Vienna and Security Studies at the University of St Andrews. His doctoral thesis analyses the ideology of the Huthi movement in Yemen. He taught Arabic grammar and Middle Eastern security studies at the Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Vienna and is co-editor of the journal Nouvelles Chroniques du manuscrit au Yémen.
Gudrun Harrer, Senior Editor, Der Standard; Lecturer for Modern History and Politics of the Near and Middle East at the University of Vienna and the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna