al-Houthi
AD: But (Saleh) appears to have thought it useful to pose as a bastion against Iranian influence, just as he did earlier with regard to al-Qaida. While many Yemenis balked at what they saw as their president’s resort to sectarian incitement, they were equally aghast at his boast that a punitive military assault against Hussein al-Houthi would resolve everything. The campaign turned into fiasco, making a mockery of the state and a hero of the dissident cleric.
Houthi’s followers had not, after all, initiated any violence, and he had not declared any rebellion. His dissent was verbal and his reasoning religious, and his views about the president were by no means unique.
Indeed, Saleh may have moved against him because he felt he was opening the floodgates to public denunciation of his regime and thus bringing its demise closer. Some regime insiders go further, suggesting that Houthi was brought to centre-stage as part of the fierce rivalry for power and influence between the president’s cousin Ali Muhsin, who commands the northwestern military sector, and his son Ahmad. Ali Muhsin was in charge of planning and carrying out the operation ordered by the president, which was conducted in a manner that risks dragging Yemen into sectarian and tribal conflict. As a reputed Zaidi convert to Wahhabism, Ali Muhsin is considered hostile to all forms of Shiism.
