Houthis' bid for Hezbollah’s throne put to the test a year after Nasrallah's killing

For at least 10 years, Abdul-Malik Al Houthi had an idol. In speeches, his attire and mannerisms, he mimicked Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

The relationship between the two went beyond mutual respect and shared Iranian backing. The Houthi chief had been positioning himself to assume the mantle of leadership over allied militant groups, waiting for the right moment to step forward.

On September 27 last year, the Israeli army killed Nasrallah and other commanders in an air strike, exposing how vulnerable the once formidable movement had become.

One year on, fears are growing that the Houthis could move to fill the vacuum in Iran’s regional influence left by their weakened Lebanese allies, and that Mr Al Houthi may now emerge as the spearhead of Tehran’s militant axis, replacing the charismatic Nasrallah.

“Abdul-Malik Al Houthi looked at Hassan Nasrallah like a father figure,” Mahmoud Shehrah, an associate fellow at Chatham House, told The National. “It was fraternal, spiritual, even. There are talks that Abdul-Malik Al Houthi could be the one who carries the banner of revenge.”

Hezbollah's grip on Lebanon is weaker than at any point in the past two decades. The group suffered a crushing defeat in its war with Israel and was left badly exposed on an intelligence level, as underscored by the pager-bomb attack.

For decades, Hezbollah led Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, a role it has held since the movement was created by Tehran in the early 1980s following the Islamic Revolution. The investment poured into Hezbollah over the years has been immense, but its dominance is now visibly eroding.

With an intensified push to disarm it, the Houthis in Yemen might be looking at a chance to cement their position in the region.

“It's true that their paymasters, Iran, their trainers and their ideological brothers Hezbollah are all suffering, but there's an element of opportunity for the Houthis who will enjoy having more of a leadership position within the axis,” said Elisabeth Kendall, president of Girton College at Cambridge University, who focuses on militant groups in the region.

Opportunity to advance

While the Houthis have a kinship with their Lebanese comrades, fundamental differences between the two groups enable the Houthis to excel in areas where Hezbollah has been less successful.

The Houthis, who overthrew the Yemeni government in 2014 and took over the capital Sanaa, have fully fledged de facto state institutions and control over most of the north and west of Yemen, where the majority of the population resides. In contrast, Hezbollah has long been seen as a state within a state, with key figures in government.

Fundamentally, too, Hezbollah is a creation of Iran, while the Houthis are supported by it.

These key political differences between the two groups have allowed the Houthis not to be as reliant on Iran for their survival, said Jovan Ilijev of the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium.

“Iran has principally made Hezbollah part of their own strategy and security on a regional level. But the Houthis are a home-grown movement supported by Iran with an autonomous social base and have been able to take the mantle of the state and generally function quite independently.”

The political chokehold on Hezbollah, which had pledged to resist US pressure to disarm, presents a silver lining for the Houthis, Mr Ilijev believes.

“While disarmament is bad on a regional and strategic level, it has also opened a position for the Houthis to advance.”

The Houthis had their eyes on a bigger regional and global role since they took over Yemen's capital. Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza presented an opportunity. They began launching attacks in the Red Sea and against Israeli targets in October 2023, days after Israel launched a brutal campaign following Hamas's attacks.

Since then, Israel has been attacking critical Houthi-controlled infrastructure such as power plants and the Red Sea port of Hodeidah on which Yemen relies heavily for fuel and aid.

Lack of intelligence

However, on August 28, Israel decided to change tactics by killing 10 members of the Houthis' government, including the prime minister. The strike, while escalatory, has not caused tangible damage to the group's security apparatus, experts told The National.

The people killed ran the day-to-day affairs, holding no real power, and the main decision-makers in the Houthi shadow government remain elusive.

“Even within their ministries and government institutions, there's a Houthi operative who runs the show behind most ministers; a Houthi 'supervisor',” said Baraa Shiban, associate fellow with the Rusi defence think tank in London.

Israel said it was attacking an area in Houthi-controlled Sanaa where senior Houthi figures had gathered, adding that the attack was a “complex operation” based on intelligence-gathering.

This could signal the beginning of similar assassinations to those seen in the killings of commanders in Hezbollah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hamas.

Israel knows well that with Hezbollah weakened, and after the massive destruction it inflicted in its war on Iran, where senior commanders were killed, it cannot allow another Hezbollah to emerge elsewhere, or another Nasrallah to rise.

The task, however, is far from simple: Yemen is thousands of kilometres away and, so far, has proved to be a black hole for intelligence.

“It's definitely a clear step in that direction – locating their leaders and then targeting them. However, [Israel's] strikes so far clearly show either a lack of understanding of the group, or a lack of intelligence,” explained Mr Shiban.

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