David Jones: We must end the Houthis’ campaign of terror within Yemen

David Jones, is a former Secretary of State for Wales, Brexit Minister and Conservative MP

There’s a lot of the following doing the rounds:

‘The Houthis are a minor annoyance, a small rebel group causing some slight disruption to shipping in a remote part of the world’

‘Hardly a significant threat to the UK or its interests. Even their attacks on Israel amount to little more than a trivial nuisance that is easily repelled by that country’s remarkable air defences.’

All nonsense, of course; but that is the impression that might reasonably be gleaned from a regular reading of most Western newspapers.

Even as the US was recently carrying out strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen, Western news media seemingly only showed interest when hapless US officials mistakenly added the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to a supposedly secure messaging group, to the acute embarrassment of the Trump administration.

In many respects, the Yemeni conflict has largely eluded media attention since the initial attacks on Western ships in late 2023. The blockage of the Suez Canal by the container vessel. Ever Given in 2021 understandably attracted huge media coverage, but its impact on international shipping was considerably less than the constant threat posed by the Houthis; yet our press and broadcasters appear strangely uninterested.

The scant media attention paid to the Houthis’ actions in the Red Sea also amounts in reality to an absolution of their appalling conduct within Yemen, highlighted in a recent, detailed report that accuses them of a multitude of crimes against humanity in their rebellion against the lawful Yemeni Government.

In just one year, the Yemeni National Coalition of Independent Women tracked almost 8,000 separate examples of clear human rights violations committed by the Houthis against Yemeni people. These included the forced recruitment of almost 4,500 children to the Houthis’ campaign of terrorist violence and hundreds of documented unlawful arrests, unexplained disappearances, and instances of brutal torture. 

One particularly barbarous crime gives a graphic sense of the Houthis’ brutalisation of Yemeni citizens. On December 28, 2024, Fatima Ayesh Ahmed was abducted from her home in the Markouda camp for internally displaced persons. She was found dead two weeks later, her body callously abandoned in the Dakhnan desert with clear signs of horrific torture, including her unborn child ripped from her womb. 

In another incident, in March last year Houthi forces decided that it was of benefit to them to surround family homes in the city of Rada’a with explosives and blow them up. Such actions are routinely pursued to enable the Houthis to terrorise the Yemeni population. 

The report details many examples of such atrocities carried out by the Houthi militia against civilians, including women and children. It is deeply distressing. But where is the international outrage? Where is the condemnation of the Houthis’ barbarity?

 It is not enough simply to bomb the Houthis in retaliation for their attacks on shipping. They must also be held legally accountable for their crimes against the Yemeni people. Their guilt must be exposed to the world. 

 We must also remember who are the enablers of their brutality. The Houthis are funded, armed, and supported by the murderous mullahs of Iran. They operate as one of Tehran’s numerous proxy terror groups and are part of its shadow war on rivals in the Middle East and the wider Western world. Indeed, Iran’s sponsorship of the Houthis’ campaign of terror means that it holds ultimate responsibility for their crimes.

The West‘s apparent lack of concern for the appalling events within Yemen is a matter of great shame. Western media have a responsibility to focus unremittingly on the crimes of the Houthis and their Iranian sponsors. Eradicating the Houthis and holding their leadership to account should be a priority for the entire Western world.

The free Western media should not abandon their focus until that is achieved.