The U.S.-Iran conflict has been playing out not only on the battlefield but also on the internet as an intense propaganda war. This extends to the parallel conflict between the United States and the Houthis, with Houthi media supporting Iran’s false narratives and Iran amplifying, as well as outright manufacturing, Houthi disinformation.
In Saada, the Houthi stronghold in northern Yemen, a rally billed as “Warning and Mobilization Friday” drew what Houthi official Yahya Nabih described as an unprecedented jihad undertaken “for God’s sake.” He said it was also a rejection of servitude to “the tyrants and criminals of the age.” Participants chanted slogans built around the rhyme, “aggression for aggression, siege for siege.”
Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi went further than Saree’s narrower framing in a separate address, declaring that “all Saudi oil facilities and vital installations are targets for our missiles and drones.” He also described Saudi inspections of incoming wheat and medicine shipments as an intolerable humiliation.
He further asserted that the Saudi enemy had “trapped itself” through its aggression against Yemen, a framing picked up nearly verbatim by Iran’s state outlet IranPress. Kremlin-backed RT Arabic also used similar language in its coverage.