Houthis

In news– Recently, Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

What is the issue?

Saudi Arabia is mired in a years-long, deadlocked war backing Yemen’s toppled government against the Iranian-backed Houthis.
The Saudi-led war, which began in March 2015, has seen an uptick in recent months amid a Houthi effort to capture the city of Marib.
That has also seen a renewal of long-range attacks by the Houthis in Saudi Arabia.

About Houthis-

The Houthis are Zaydi Shiites, or Zaydiyyah.
Shiite Muslims are the minority community in the Islamic world and Zaydis are a minority of Shiites, significantly different in doctrine and beliefs from the Shiites who dominate in Iran, Iraq, and elsewhere (often called Twelvers for their belief in twelve Imams).
The Zadiyyah take their name from Zayd bin Ali, the great grandson of Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, whom all Shiites revere.

Houthi Movement:

The Houthi movement, officially called Ansar Allah (meaning “Supporters of God”), is an Islamic political and armed movement that emerged from Sa’dah in northern Yemen in the 1990s.
The movement was called Houthis because its founder is from the Houthi tribe.
The Houthis began as a moderate theological movement that preached tolerance and held a broad-minded view of all the Yemeni peoples.
Under the leadership of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the group emerged as an opposition to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
They charged Saleh with massive financial corruption and criticized for being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States at the expense of the Yemeni people and Yemen’s sovereignty.
Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi was killed in Sa’dah in 2004 along with a number of his guards by the Yemeni army, sparking the Houthi insurgency in Yemen.
Since then, except for a short intervening period, the movement has been led by his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.
The movement’s expressed goals include combating economic underdevelopment and political marginalization in Yemen while seeking greater autonomy for Houthi-majority regions of the country.