A tense but useful cooperation 

Despite the most debated topic in this paper is fighting back the terrorist threat, particularly the one represented by Huthis, the present paper is about a possible, despite not easy, Russo-American cooperation against Islamic terrorism. Both Leviathans (the US at sea and Russia on land) share a common animosity towards Islam. In the present analysis, we are going to scrutinise why it is so, and how this can promote some cooperation.  

ISKP

According to the present paper’s author, the ISIS never had an actual functional organisation.  Coherently with the Sunni confession, ISIS members believed that the Prophet’s descendants only could become leaders. Nevertheless, it defeated Iraqi and Syrian defence forces. According to O. Ashour, author of the book How ISIS Fights (Edited by Edinburgh University Press), there were two factors contributing to ISIS success: the perceived brutality of the regimes holding the territories previously occupied by Iraqi and Syrian regimes and the alienation of modern-day soldiers. The first one is intuitive: when a population lives in grievous conditions, it is easy to blame the institutions and to search for an external saviour. The second one, due to technology, does not allow the military to perform human intelligence and counterintelligence among citizens because they lost ability to perform human intelligence. All in all, ISIS was formally declared defeated in March 2023, with the re-conquest of the Syrian village of Baghouz, by Syrian force.  

An Islamic State reburn as Islamic-State-Khorasan-Province  in Afghanistan in 2015. It gained global attention in March 2024 because of the execution of   Crocus City Hall, Moscow. Before that, CIA informed its Russian counterparts about a possible attack, but the Russians didn’t pay attention at all. 

According to the author, Islamic radical groups in Central Asia are likely to prosper because the Soviets imposed atheism and destroyed the Central Asian people’s social order. Because of it, the Russian Federation (hereafter RF), as heir of the USSR, is very hated and Islamic religion is going through a revival. Despite there was the conviction that modernity would have not brough central Asia to religious radicalisation, as sustained by a Chatham House Research Paper written by John Heathershaw and David W. Montgomery in November 2014, the reverse has happened. 

Islamic fundamentalism is not particularly dangerous for the RF: the war in Ukraine offered the possibility of sending thousand Chechens and Siberians to the battlefield as cannon fodder, a tactic that the Russian and Soviet military has always used. 

Ansar Allah 

According to who is writing, Ansar Allah (hereafter Houthi) is even more dangerous than ISIS. Since their Shia confession makes them able to follow whoever has the skills to be a leader. Differently from ISIS, Houthi’s success was prompted by the desperate humanitarian  conditions the country laid in. However, they were able to acquire Teheran’s esteem due to their shared Shia inheritance (even though Houthi is Zaydi, a sub-branch of Shiism, while the Iranians are Twelvers   and their strategic position.

Even though, Houthi is not an Iranian proxy: they started to get weapons and training from the whole axis of resistance. Nevertheless, since the Iranians trust them, the Islamic Republic of Iran (hereafter IRI) provided them with sophisticated drones, missiles, and explosive boats.

According to the present paper’s author, Houthi is more dangerous for the West than for other geopolitical actors, because the West is a staunch supporter of Israel. Moreover, the West has no interest at negotiating with Houthi because it knows about the terrible humanitarian conditions existing in the country. According to the author, Western powers rely on terrible Yemeni conditions to retake control over Bab-el-Mandeb Strait. Those humanitarian issues, present since 2003, got worse because of the war in Ukraine and the consequent naval block concerning merchant ships transporting wheat. 

According to the author, given the impressive level of organisation demonstrated, Huthis are definable as a proto-state organisation. Their level of maturity has pushed the RF to the announcement (made in September) to provide them with its advanced missiles via IRI. In July, the Russians were on the verge of sending anti-ship-missiles to Houthi with no intermediary according to the US intelligence). 

The war in Ukraine, with the correlated sanctions upon Moscow, has increased the Russian need to smuggle oil and gas. There is a oil-shadow-fleet  of tankers (around 600) transporting Russian oil and gas around the globe. Since Suez is the main route, the Kremlin has become increasingly interested in that. Therefore, Moscow developed an interest in alliance with proto-state political actors close to important straits (like Houthi), reversing its policy of negotiating with nation-states only. It is to mention that the RF has already struck a deal with Houthi to ensure ship passage in March 2024. Nevertheless, the US attacked Houthi underground weapons caches using stealth-bombersrecently. According to the author, they intended to show that the US are not scary by the RF and the IRI. 

To wrap up:

So What?

Here is my prevision for the next 8 months, with related percentages: