BEIRUT: Yemen’s foreign minister warned on Wednesday that the Houthis would become “undefeatable” if the world allowed them the time to do so, and her government sought neither a ceasefire nor negotiations with the Iran-backed militia.
“If the Houthis are given more time, they will become an undefeatable militia. They will be monsters,” Afrah Al-Zouba told reporters during a virtual press briefing.
Neither she nor anyone else could “think of living on this planet” with such a threat looming over them, she added, a danger she warned had now spread to the Horn of Africa.
Al-Zouba, Yemen’s first female foreign minister, said Yemen’s government had abandoned “the illusion of peace” that had allowed the Houthis to “regroup, rearm and reattack the foundations of our state.”
She added: “We are not calling for a ceasefire. We are not calling for starting any negotiations with the Houthis.” Any ceasefire or political process must now come “with the needed conditions to make it real. We don’t want to sign the same truce twice and expect different results.”
Al-Zouba began her briefing by offering condolences to Saudi Arabia and the families of the 13 people killed by a Houthi missile strike on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Saturday. The victims included citizens of Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, the US, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Sudan and India. More than 300 people were wounded.
She described the attack, and Houthi missile and drone attacks on Aden airport the same week, as “dual acts of terror” that showed the militia could no longer be regarded simply as a party to an internal Yemeni conflict.
“They have become a threat to regional and international security,” she said.
Al-Zouba accused Iran of using the Houthis to out pressure on the international community, including Washington, at the negotiating table. After Tehran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping and Saudi Arabia diverted oil exports to its East-West pipeline, she said “the decision was to block Bab Al-Mandab,” another choke point for shipping, which had prompted the Houthi offensive on the Red Sea coast targeting the strait last month.
The militia had offered assurances it would not disrupt freedom of maritime navigation except for Saudi shipping, an offer she said was false and one that “no one in the international community believed.”
Iran supplies the Houthis with weapons, funding, training and support, she said, describing this as a conclusion reached through “documented evidence, not simply a political assessment.”
She cited as examples of this evidence the seizure in 2013 of the cargo vessel Jihan 1 carrying Iranian weapons, and the interception in 2025 of about 750 tonnes of equipment and arms bound for the Houthis, both of which were investigated by a UN Panel of Experts.
The Houthis had gone from being a beneficiary of Iranian expertise to an exporter of it, Al-Zouba said, citing findings by the Panel of Experts that Houthi military engineers had traveled to Somalia to train Al-Shabab fighters in the use of explosives, drone modifications and weapons maintenance. She described the expanding network as a “Red Sea axis” that now reached into the Horn of Africa.
Before the Houthi attacks on international shipping began this year, she said, the Red Sea carried about 12 to 15 percent of global trade. “With the Strait of Hormuz also under pressure, the security of Bab Al-Mandab matters more than ever,” she added.
Operation Dawn of Yemen, ordered on Oct. 4 by the head of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Rashad Al-Alimi, is being carried out under Article 51 of the UN Charter, Al-Zouba said.
“The decision is Yemeni, the command is Yemeni, the soldiers are Yemenis,” and partners from the Coalition to Restore Legitimacy in Yemen were providing air support, she added.
All Yemeni forces, including the Giants Brigades, the Nation’s Shield Forces and the regular army, operated under a unified command and a single operations committee, Al-Zouba said.
Discussions with partners were being conducted in coordination with the coalition, she added, whose main objective was “to support the Yemeni military forces, not to do their job.”
Government forces had regained control of key coastal positions overlooking Bab Al-Mandab Strait, she said, and fighting continues in Taiz, Marib, Hodeidah and along the west coast.
“It’s not an easy battle but it’s a must,” she added.
Since 2022, Al-Zouba said, the government had honored the truce agreement while the Houthis had stockpiled missiles with ranges exceeding 2,000 km and attacked oil and gas export facilities, depriving the state of revenue.
She described the protracted Houthi siege of Taiz, one of the most populous governorates in Yemen, as “a war crime.” Hundreds of kidney patients could lose access to dialysis within one or two weeks, she said, as the militia cuts off water, fuel and food supplies.
The government was talking to the International Committee of the Red Cross about getting fuel into the city for healthcare and water facilities, and to private companies about deliveries of food and water, she added.
More than 217,000 Yemenis have been displaced since the latest escalation began, she said, and she denounced the Houthis for diverting aid, obstructing humanitarian efforts and continuing to detain 72 UN workers.
Al-Zouba urged Washington to expand its sanctions on Houthi financiers, shipping networks, front companies and suppliers, and called on the EU to coordinate more closely with the US to close enforcement gaps. She also asked for intelligence sharing, training and equipment for Yemen’s army and coast guard.
Any settlement of the conflict, she said, must include disarmament of the Houthis in line with the agreed terms of reference and UN Security Council Resolution 2216.
She cited the situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah operated as “a state inside the state,” as an example Yemen did not want to replicate.
“This is not a conflict between two equally legitimate authorities,” she said. “The Houthis are a terrorist militia that seized our state institutions and territories by force and took the Yemeni people hostage.”
