19 January 2012

Abdul-Malik al-Houthi


Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi has been a military leader of the Houthi band of Zaidi Shia insurgents in Yemen since his brother Hussein's death in 2004. In 1994, Hussein started a faction of Shia called the Believing Youth (Shabab al-Mu'mineen), which opposes the Yemeni government's corruption on religious grounds. A peaceful movement in its first years, it became armed in 2004, launching an insurgency against the government; Hussein was killed three months into the conflict.


Relatively little is known about Abdul-Malik, whether he has a wife or children. His death was rumored in 2009, but this has been refuted by subsequent videos and interviews. The Believing Youth insurgency has continued intermittently from Hussein's death until the beginning of 2011 in six rounds. Abdul-Malik's brother Yahia is the group's political leader and a former member of Parliament currently in exile in Germany. The Houthis strongly support Yemen's Arab Spring protests.

For more information, see http://bit.ly/c7VQxU or http://bit.ly/wSyi4d.

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