Houthis take over

REALITY is just beginning to sink in for Yemenis astounded by the speed with which their capital city, Sana’a, has fallen to an insurgent group known as the Houthis. A decade ago the movement, which champions the 40% Zaydi Shia minority whose hereditary leaders ruled much of the country until 1962, was a ragtag bunch of tribesmen squeezed by an army siege in the remote northern province of Saada. Talk of the Houthis in Sana’a was dismissed; the idea that their leader might some day give a victory speech in its Tahrir Square unimaginable.