Can Yemen’s government win over the tribes needed to beat the Houthis?

The Yemeni government's newly launched offensive against the Houthis is testing far more than the military balance of power on the ground. It is also testing whether the internationally recognised administration can persuade the powerful tribes embedded in Houthi-held territory that the tide is genuinely turning in their favour.

For years, many tribes that are hostile to, or deeply wary of, the Iran-backed movement have stopped short of confronting it openly. Two factors have held them back: the Houthis' demonstrated military strength, and the memory of earlier uprisings that ended in failure. Now those same communities are watching the government's reactivated frontlines — principally the Red Sea coast, Marib and al-Jawf — for evidence that the modest gains achieved since this week's launch of the Dawn of Yemen military operation can be converted into lasting momentum.

The offensive by forces backing the government, which enjoys Saudi Arabia's support, comes in response to a dramatic Houthi advance in September. During that sweep, the armed group, also known as Ansar Allah — Arabic for Supporters of God — seized large stretches of the country's Red Sea coastline. Among the prizes were the port city of Mocha and territory overlooking the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world's most critical shipping lanes.

Airstrikes have cost the Houthis dearly over recent days, but analysts caution that pushing deeper into Houthi strongholds will be a far harder task. The movement has been dug in since the war began in 2014 in areas including Sanaa, Saada and Amran, making any advance into its heartland a formidable undertaking.

The government has raised the stakes considerably by declaring an all-out war and pledging to recapture Sanaa itself. Experts say that explicit ambition could erode tribal distrust of the authorities, positioning tribes to switch sides when the moment looks right. Given that the government cannot hope to penetrate Houthi territory without local manpower and knowledge, the tribes' choice may prove decisive.

Signs of movement have already appeared. On Monday, a large tribal gathering in Marib governorate — the government's northern power base — brought together sheikhs and local anti-Houthi fighters from tribes including the Jadan of Marib, the Nihm of Sanaa, and other allied groups. The rally declared a general mobilisation in support of the armed forces, framed as a battle to "restore the state and topple the Houthi coup".

Adel Dashela, a researcher at the Sana'a Center for Strategic Studies, said the impact of that show of support depends entirely on whether it converts into real, sustained participation in the fighting. If it does, he argued, tribes could help government troops push towards Houthi-controlled areas and ultimately the Houthi heartland, including Sanaa.

Across a decade of war, Yemeni tribes have repeatedly risen against the Houthis at a local level. What has consistently been missing is unity: deep internal divisions and an absence of sustained outside backing have prevented the emergence of a single tribal front. Even so, the tribes remain a potentially vital reservoir of fighters and influence for the government.

Dashela stressed, however, that tribal enthusiasm alone will not be enough. For those fighters to be effective, he said, their involvement must run through formalised state and coalition command structures rather than operating as an independent vanguard — a lesson drawn from years of fragmented, uncoordinated resistance.

Abdulsalam Mohammed, chairman of the Yemeni Abaad Studies and Research Center, described a pattern of caution. Tribes, he explained, are unwilling to risk a confrontation with Houthi forces without reliable backing, and tend to "wait for the right time" before committing. In practice, they are looking for a powerful state they can trust — and once they judge that state to be dependable, they will side with it.

That calculation is shaped by bitter experience. Mohammed noted that tribes do not want to repeat the errors of earlier rebellions against the Houthis that drew no meaningful government support. Those communities rose up and were subsequently crushed, he said, precisely because the state was absent when it mattered.

The Hajoor tribe's experience in northwestern Yemen's Hajjah province stands as a cautionary example. Fighting between the Houthis and Hajoor fighters erupted in January 2019 and dragged on for several weeks before Houthi forces captured the tribe's areas in March of that year. Saudi Arabia airdropped food, medical supplies and weapons to the besieged fighters, yet the intervention failed to prevent their defeat.

Mohammed suggested that allegiance is not always fixed, even within Houthi-held areas. Some tribes, he said, could shift gradually towards the government if they came to see that alignment as serving their interests. Not every tribe fighting for the Houthis is an ideological convert: motivations range from pragmatism and material necessity through to genuine conviction.

The obstacles facing the government run deeper than battlefield arithmetic. Over the past decade, the Houthis have systematically weakened traditional tribal power structures in the areas they control, co-opting some leaders and installing loyalists in place of others. They have repelled repeated tribal challenges and absorbed conflict not only with the Yemeni government and Saudi Arabia, but also with airstrikes carried out by the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel.

All of that, analysts say, has cultivated a belief among many tribes that Houthi military capability is close to invincible — a perception the current offensive will have to dismantle before allegiances begin to shift. One tribal sheikh in northern Yemen, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity for security reasons, pointed to the Houthis' apparent supremacy after more than a decade of war as the reason so many communities remain reluctant to act.

Whether the Dawn of Yemen operation changes that calculus will depend on more than early territorial gains. It will hinge on the government's ability to demonstrate staying power, protect the tribes that back it, and fold their fighters into a coherent command — the very things that have eluded previous attempts to build a unified anti-Houthi front.