00:00At the beginning, I would say Hezbollah played a significant role into transforming them.
00:06Otherwise, they would just remain as a ragtag militia who are just a small group in the mountains.
00:13But they transformed them in terms of their structure, in terms of the movement, in terms of the hierarchy,
00:18building their military capacity and so on.
00:23At the beginning, it was Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia, all with one mission to support the Yemeni government.
00:30Qatar went out in 2017.
00:32Then a rivalry and tension between the factions that are supported by Saudi versus the factions that are supported by
00:40the UAE.
00:42The UAE focused their attention on separatist movements in the south of Yemen.
00:49Those are a group that have already, for a long time, had their grievances, but they were emboldened by the
00:55UAE.
00:56They were empowered, they were financed, armed, and so on.
01:01And those, technically, were also fighting the Yemeni government.
01:06So you can imagine a period of you're having a front against the Houthis, but also infighting that started to
01:15show clear cracks within the ranks of the Yemeni government.
01:21On paper, you have a coalition that is, main objective is to supporting the internationally recognized government.
01:30But in reality, you have two competing sides.
01:36The UAE is supporting the separatists, while the Saudis supporting the Yemeni government.
01:42And that led to rounds of conflict.
01:45You can imagine that's a conflict within a conflict.
01:48All of that is benefiting the Houthis.
01:52While that extended the period of the war, the more time you give the Houthis, the more advantage they have.
02:00Because that's the period when they started to develop their ballistic missiles, the proliferation of drones.
02:08The Iranians giving them technology, experts.
02:14Now, when people compare them, they're not heavily reliant on Iran like Hezbollah when it started.
02:22But the IRGC gives them just what they need.
02:26So they have the edge over the Yemeni opponents.
02:32The use of drones.
02:35Even their ability to strike inside Saudi Arabia.
02:40At the beginning, it was some random missiles that really didn't hit anywhere.
02:44But by time, it was improving.
02:47They were starting to hit oil facilities.
02:49They're becoming more accurate and actually causing real damage to Saudi infrastructure.
02:55That developed by time.
02:57And that was a direct result of the IRGC investing in the Houthis.
03:04The Houthis also, starting from then 2019, started to be embedded with Iraqi militias.
03:11Basically, working in Iraq, you'd have Houthi commanders working with the Iraqi militias.
03:18For the Houthis, they gain more than anything when they have territory.
03:24The problem they have is that when they start losing territory.
03:29Losing territory means they are on the way, on the path to defeat.
03:35With territory, they have revenue.
03:38And with territory, they have recruits.
03:40And that's the main thing.
03:43The other important thing, unlike the Yemeni government, the areas that it controls, it has to govern.
03:50It has to pay salaries, it has to deliver services, and Yemen is going through a difficult and dire economic
03:57crisis.
03:59The Houthis do not pay salaries and do not pay public employees in Houthi-controlled areas,
04:08having been paid their salaries for more than eight years now.
04:13They spend almost nothing on delivery of services.
04:16They used to rely heavily on UN agencies.
04:20And then all of that revenue and resource is directed towards the war machine.
04:27With the Houthis, you have a clear chain of command.
04:30There is only one military, one army.
04:33While with the Yemeni government, it is still cooperating with the Saudis.
04:41It is, it has kind of, it's supposed to be on paper, have access to the international community and countries
04:49like the United States.
04:51But there is reluctance in terms of supporting them all the way.
04:59Right now, the Houthis do not want to engage in any talks.
05:03They have the momentum.
05:04They feel they can even gain more territory.
05:08And their aim is now to go even beyond the west coast of Yemen.
05:15They're emboldened.
05:16They like the attention of the international community.
05:20They like that now everyone is talking about them.
05:24And now they're hitting Saudi Arabia and they will keep hitting them hard.
05:27They're hitting them hard.
05:27They're hitting them hard.
05:27They're hitting them hard.
05:27They're hitting them hard.
05:28They're hitting them hard.
05:28They're hitting them hard.
05:28They're hitting them hard.
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