Discussant: Amb. Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Advisor, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)

On January 11, 2024, CEP hosted a webinar to present a new, in-depth report concerning a major source of Houthi intelligence and revenue: telecommunications in Yemen.

The Houthis may have appeared unsophisticated to outside observers when they took Sanaa in 2014. However, since then they have had a very deliberate approach toward information technology. The Houthis have made it a priority to control all Internet and cellular communications companies in their territory, providing unfettered access to private communications, the creation of an “information bubble” to indoctrinate the Yemeni public, and a source of considerable revenue in an otherwise bleak Yemeni economy.

CEP’s report on Yemeni telecommunications documents Houthi efforts to control, shape and surveil the Yemeni information space. The terror group has undertaken significant measures to this end, from major transactions with multinationals via straw companies to imprisonment of senior officials to force their compliance with Houthi demands. As it stands, there are no real alternatives in Yemen to the telecommunications companies other than those under Houthi control.