Houthi insurgency

Houthi insurgency
	Part of the Yemeni crisis and the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict
	; Houthi militants, September 2015
Date	18 June 2004 – 16 September 2014; (10 years, 2 months, 4 weeks and 1 day)
Location	Former North Yemen
Result	Houthi victory Conflict escalates into a full-scale civil war with the Yemeni government and foreign intervention; Houthi rebels take over Sa'dah and establish an independent administration in Sa'dah Governorate and parts of 'Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah.; Houthis take control of Sanaa; Yemeni government under President Hadi relocated from Sanaa to Aden;
Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
Casualties and losses
	Total casualties:; Hundreds to thousands killed (humanitarian organizations), 25,000 (Houthi sources); 2,000 Sa'dah residents handicapped; 250,000 Yemenis displaced; ; 1.General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar in charge of Yemeni operations against the Houthis until 2011 when he deserted.; 2.Sheikh Badreddin al-Houthi died of natural causes in November 2010; 3.Sheikh Abdullah al-Ruzami turned himself in to the authorities in 2005, but later he was released; 4.Sheikh Farris Mana'a was a government ally until his arrest in 2010, after which he endorsed the Houthis and was appointed to head their administration.

The Houthi insurgency, also known as the Houthi rebellion, the Sa'dah Wars, or the Sa'dah conflict, was a military rebellion pitting Zaidi Shia Houthis (though the movement also includes Sunnis) against the Yemeni military that began in Northern Yemen and has since escalated into a full-scale civil war. The conflict was sparked in 2004 by the government's attempt to arrest Hussein al-Houthi, a Zaidi religious leader of the Houthis and a former parliamentarian on whose head the government had placed a $55,000 bounty.

Initially, most of the fighting took place in Sa'dah Governorate in northwestern Yemen, but some of the fighting spread to neighbouring governorates Hajjah, 'Amran, al-Jawf and the Saudi province of Jizan. After the Houthi takeover of the capital city Sanaa in late 2014, the insurgency became a full-blown civil war with a major Saudi-led intervention in Yemen beginning in March 2015.