Optional support of Deep Podcast: / deeppodcastiran Instagram: / deep.podcast Telegram Channel: Https://www.telegram.me/deeppodcast Music by @incompetech_kmac Kevin MacLeod @ScottBuckley Link to Guardian article about Iran International: https://www .theguardian.com/world/201... Sources: https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/at... https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4... https://www .cfr.org/global-conflict-t... https://www.reuters.com/article/world... The Houthis are a Zaidi Shiite group. Zaidi Shiites settled in the northwest of Yemen from the end of the 8th century AD. Of course, they did not call them Houthis at that time. Zaidi Shiites believe that after Imam Sajjad, Imamate will come to Zayd bin Ali. That is, they accept only 5 imams and they believe that after Zayd bin Ali, we don't have any more imams, and the imamate can reach anyone who is from the generation of those imams, only on the condition that you continue their path. For this reason, since the 8th century, they always introduced one of their elders as Imam and all followed him. Zaidi Shiites were always considered a very small minority in the Muslim community, but their situation was different in Yemen. In Yemen, they make up nearly 40% of the country's population. Now let's come to the contemporary era and see what path the country of Yemen traveled before the start of the Houthi movement. Yemen was not a single country until the 19th century and was divided into two parts, northern and southern. The northern part was under Ottoman control and the southern part was under the control of Great Britain. In 1918, during the First World War, the Ottoman Empire collapsed. North Yemen also uses this opportunity to declare independence. Zaidi imams, who had the sovereignty of northern Yemen during the Ottoman period, now took advantage of the opportunity and formed their own independent country. They also named the country Mutawakuli Kingdom of Yemen. South Yemen remained under British control. In 1954, Gamal Abdel Nasser took power in Egypt. One of Nasser's policies to form a single Arab country was to destroy all the kingdoms in the region. Nasser sent all the forces and weapons to Yemen to overthrow the Yemeni kingdom. The kingdom that was in the possession of Imam Zaidiyyah. This caused a civil war in North Yemen in 1962. In 1967, in South Yemen, the communists succeeded in achieving their revolution and expelling the British. South Yemen became a communist government. In the north of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, the civil war was still raging. During this war, Jamal Abdul Nasser supported the republicans and King Faisal of Saudi Arabia supported the royalists. With the spread of the civil war, the king of Yemen, Imam Muhammad al-Badr, went to Saudi Arabia. Nasser sent 70,000 Egyptian troops to the north of Yemen to defeat the Zaydis, but despite this, the Zaydi tribes were still able to resist. But suddenly in 1970, King Faisal recognized the government of the Republic of Yemen and Imam Muhammad al-Badr, who no longer had an ally, had to accept defeat. The government of North Yemen changed to a republican government. For centuries, the direct and indirect rule of the Zaidi imams in northern Yemen had disappeared. Imam Muhammad al-Badr, who believed that Saudi Arabia had betrayed them, was very disappointed. He quickly left Saudi Arabia and went to London and lived in silence until the end of his life. The government in North Yemen had changed, but practically the new government did not have many fans among the people. Nearly half of the people of northern Yemen were Zaidis. They wanted Imam Zaidi to return to power, but because they had no supporters, they were forced to accept the new government. Until 8 years later, Yemen did not have a stable political situation, until in 1978, Ali Abdullah Saleh became the president of North Yemen. Saleh was able to rule stability in the Republic of North Yemen with an iron fist. But Saleh fully understands the danger of the Zaidis. Saleh decided to cooperate with Saudi Arabia in order to reduce the power of the Zaidis. Saleh and Saudi Arabia began to spread Wahhabi ideas among Yemeni Sunnis. Wahhabis considered their first enemy to be Shias and believe that the blood of Shias is halal. In fact, Saleh wanted to mix Sunnis and Shiites in Yemen so that he could easily rule over them. The Zaidi Shiites and Yemeni Sunnis had been living together for centuries and had no problems at all. But with this new policy of Saleh, now the Zaidis were being suppressed by the government and a great hatred against them was spreading in the society. Hossein Badreddin al-Houthi was a Zaydi Shia. Al-Houthi was born in 1959 in Saada province in the north of Yemen. This province was the center of Zaidi Shiites in Yemen. In some sources, it is said that after the Islamic revolution in Iran, Hossein al-Houthi traveled to Qom and completed his studies in Qom. It was there that it was heavily influe