Into the Maze of Tribalism 2004–6
Chapter 5 reconstructs the course and the dynamics of the first three rounds of the Houthi conflict, also called the ‘Ṣaʿdah War’, from its eruption in June 2004 until the February 2006 ceasefire, which successfully brought the third Ṣaʿdah War to a halt and ushered into several months of detente. It shows how, in the course of the war, the sectarian and social-revolutionary thrust of Houthism began to fuse with existing open and latent conflicts in Yemen’s North, a process that led to an enormous expansion of the war’s scope and magnitude. It analyses the course of the war’s first three rounds, the composition of the national military and Houthi armed forces, their respective supporters and opponents among the local tribes, and attempts at mediation between the two sides.