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Farea Al-Muslimi is a research fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Program. His research focuses on Yemen and the wider Gulf region. Prior to joining Chatham House, he was a non-resident fellow at Carnegie Middle East Center and the Middle East Institute in Washington, also working at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), Beyond Reforms and Development, and Resonate! Yemen. He co-founded the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in 2014, serving as its first chairperson until 2022.
The removal of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011 has created an existential crisis for Yemen’s Houthis. Like many other armed political groups in Yemen and elsewhere, the Houthis’ survival depends on the continued existence of an enemy. With Saleh gone, their raison d’être has become difficult to define and their armed opposition hard to defend.
