Yemen's Unconventional Resilience: Intelligence Failures, Revolutionary Leadership, and thE Soleimani Doctrine

Introduction: The Assassination That Never Was

The failed assassination attempt on Major General Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Ghamari, Chief of Staff of Yemen's Armed Forces, in August 2025 represents more than merely another operational setback for Israeli intelligence . It reveals a fundamental strategic blindness at the heart of Israel's targeting apparatus when operating against Yemen's Ansarallah movement. Unlike the methodical, precise strikes against Hezbollah leadership in 2024-2025—which followed a predictable pattern of warning, strike, and confirmation—the operations against Ansarallah commanders have been characterized by confusion, misidentification, and public equivocation. Israeli media themselves expressed uncertainty about whether the target was al-Ghamari, Interior Minister Abdul Karim al-Houthi, or the defense minister, while official Israeli military channels remained conspicuously silent. This operational disarray stands in stark contrast to Israel's previously demonstrated capabilities against other regional actors and suggests a significant intelligence degradation when confronting Yemen's unique security architecture.

1. The Intelligence Failure: Operational Security Asymmetries

1.1 Comparative Case: Lebanon vs. Yemen Targeting Campaigns

Israel's campaign against Hezbollah in 2024-2025 demonstrated methodical precision in high-value targeting. The process consistently followed a recognizable pattern: initial warning messages from Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee instructing civilians to evacuate specific buildings, followed by official Israeli military confirmation of striking specific senior figures (such as Hajj Safieddine), and culminating in Hezbollah's martyrdom announcement the following day. This predictable rhythm, while devastating to Hezbollah's leadership structure, indicated Israeli intelligence had achieved significant penetration and predictability regarding Hezbollah's movements and security protocols.

In Yemen, however, Israel faces a dramatically different challenge reminiscent of its intelligence failures during the 2006 Lebanon War. Then-Mossad director Meir Dagan reportedly admitted to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that despite intensive efforts, intelligence agencies could not locate either Hassan Nasrallah or Imad Mughniyeh in the war's final days—a startling admission given both leaders were reportedly conversing casually under a tree in Beirut's southern suburbs rather than in fortified bunkers. Contemporary Yemen operations show similar characteristics of intelligence blindness, with conflicting reports about targets, confusion between leadership figures, and an inability to verify operations successfully. This suggests Ansarallah has implemented exceptional operational security measures that effectively deny Israel the intelligence superiority it enjoys against other regional actors.

1.2 The Psychological Dimension of Uncertainty

The intelligence failure transcends operational effectiveness and enters the psychological dimension of conflict. Israel's precise targeting against Hezbollah served not only to eliminate key figures but also to demonstrate intelligence dominance, thereby undermining morale among remaining personnel and supporters. The confusion and uncertainty surrounding operations in Yemen produce the opposite effect—bolstering Ansarallah's image as an unpredictable and resilient force while potentially damaging confidence in Israeli intelligence agencies. This psychological aspect creates strategic effects disproportionate to the tactical outcomes of individual operations, potentially influencing decision-making calculations throughout the region.

2. Ansarallah's Revolutionary Leadership: Unconventional Fusion

2.1 Diverse Backgrounds, Unified Purpose

Ansarallah's leadership structure embodies a strategic synthesis of disparate military traditions that would appear contradictory to external observers accustomed to conventional military organizations. The movement seamlessly integrates two distinct leadership profiles:

Table: Ansarallah's Leadership Diversity

Figure	Background	Military Tradition	Strategic Orientation
Defense Minister	30-year professional officer in Saleh's army, joined Ansarallah as Major General in 2013	Conventional warfare	Traditional military operations, hierarchical command
Chief of Staff Mohammed Abdul Karim al-Ghamari	Hezbollah-trained mujahid, pioneer of suicide bombing units, asymmetrical warfare specialist	Revolutionary resistance	Unconventional warfare, guerrilla tactics

This fusion creates a hybrid military doctrine that combines the discipline and organizational structure of conventional military forces with the flexibility, innovation, and commitment of revolutionary resistance movements. The cooperation between figures resembling "Gamal Abdel Nasser" and "Mohammed Deif"—as referenced in the original analysis—represents a strategic innovation that enables Ansarallah to operate effectively across both conventional and irregular battlefields. The same dynamics exist and in fact flourished in Iran by the joint collaboration between the Iranian Army and the IRGC.

2.2 Beyond Militia Designations

Western analysts frequently dismiss Ansarallah as a mere "militia" or "rebel group," categories that fail to capture the movement's complex character as the standing army of a pan-national Yemeni revolution . This conceptual limitation impedes accurate assessment of their capabilities, resilience, and potential evolution. Ansarallah has demonstrated state-like military capacities including missile development, drone warfare, naval targeting, and strategic coordination with regional allies—capabilities far exceeding typical non-state actor profiles. Their continued power despite extensive bombing campaigns and international pressure suggests institutional depth and popular support that transcends conventional militia models.

3. The IRGC-Quds Force Model: Advisors Not Commanders

3.1 The "More Native Than Natives" Doctrine

The presence of IRGC-Quds Force generals within resistance movements follows a consistent pattern established over decades—what Palestinian Islamic Jihad Secretary-General Dr. Ziad Nakhala described as becoming "more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves" through years of close cooperation. This approach emphasizes deep cultural immersion, ideological alignment, and unconditional support rather than external command structures. The examples are historical and widespread:

• Haj Ahmad Motavaselian in Lebanon (1982)

• Mohammad Reza Naghdi in Bosnia (1995)

• Bagher Zolghadr in Sudan

• Gholamreza Baghbani in Afghanistan

• Hamid Taghavi in Iraq

• Hossein Hamedani in Syria

• Mohammad Reza Zahedi in Syria (2023-24)

• Abbas Nilforoushan in Lebanon (2023-24)

  
  

This pattern continues undoubtedly in Yemen with sanctioned Quds Force generals like Abdolreza Shahlaei (Haj Yusef) and Mohammad Reza Fallahzadeh (Abu Baqer) providing advisory support.

3.2 The Soleimani Doctrine: Counseling Not Commanding

The late Qasem Soleimani's own description of his role during the 2006 Lebanon War establishes the definitive model for Quds Force engagement: He emphasized that Hezbollah devised its own strategy from start to finish, while his role was primarily to provide counseling support, facilitate communication with Iranian leadership, and ensure Hezbollah received requested resources without operational strings attached . This advisory rather than command role creates a fundamentally different dynamic than typical state-proxy relationships, fostering greater initiative, adaptation, and local ownership of military operations while still achieving strategic coordination within the broader Axis of Resistance.

4. Regional Context and Strategic Implications

4.1 Yemen's Strategic Value in the Regional Balance

Yemen's Ansarallah represents perhaps the most resilient element within Iran's axis following recent conflicts. Despite over a year and a half of military action by the US, Western allies, and Israel, the Houthis continue to hold power in Yemen and maintain military capabilities including missile and drone attacks against shipping in the Red Sea. Their geographic position enables them to threaten critical maritime chokepoints, while their demonstrated ability to strike Israeli territory provides them with strategic relevance beyond their immediate theater.

The group's continued resilience despite extensive military pressure and isolation suggests significant internal cohesion and adaptive capacity. Reports indicate possible military equipment transfers from China and Russia to the Houthis in exchange for safe passage through the Red Sea, highlighting how the group has become enmeshed in broader geopolitical competition beyond the Iran-Israel rivalry.

5. Theoretical Framework: Understanding Revolutionary Resilience

5.1 The Hybrid Resistance Model

Ansarallah exemplifies an emerging hybrid resistance model that combines characteristics of state and non-state actors, conventional and irregular warfare, traditional military structures and revolutionary mobilization. This model presents unique challenges to conventional military powers accustomed to fighting either traditional state armies or non-state insurgents, but rarely both simultaneously embodied in a single actor.

The model's effectiveness derives from its adaptive flexibility—the ability to shift between conventional positional defense and irregular guerrilla tactics as circumstances dictate. This flexibility is enhanced by the diverse backgrounds within its leadership, which encompass both professional military training and revolutionary resistance experience, creating a synthesis that leverages the strengths of both traditions while mitigating their respective limitations.

5.2 Networked Resistance vs. Hierarchical State Militaries

The contrast between Israel's hierarchical military-intelligence apparatus and Ansarallah's networked resistance structure illustrates a broader structural asymmetry in contemporary conflict. Traditional state militaries excel at gathering intelligence on fixed installations, regular patterns, and hierarchical organizations but struggle against networked, decentralized, and adaptive non-state actors that effectively blend into civilian populations and maintain exceptional operational security.

This structural advantage enables resistant movements to withstand tremendous military pressure despite significant material and technological disadvantages—a phenomenon demonstrated in conflicts from Vietnam to Afghanistan and now potentially in Yemen. Israel's intelligence failures against Ansarallah reflect not merely operational shortcomings but a fundamental challenge to state-centric intelligence methodologies when confronting networked resistance movements.

Conclusion: Strategic Implications and Future Trajectories

The strategic synthesis within Ansarallah's leadership between conventional military professionalism and revolutionary resistance experience creates a hybrid model that complicates traditional categorization and response frameworks. Meanwhile, the IRGC-Quds Force's advisory model—emphasizing cultural immersion, ideological alignment, and resource facilitation without operational control—has proven more effective than traditional command relationships in fostering resilient proxy forces.

Looking forward, several trajectories seem plausible:

1. Continued Intelligence Adaptation: Israel will likely invest significant resources in improving intelligence collection against Yemeni targets, potentially employing new technologies and methodologies to overcome current limitations.

2. Strategic Reassessment: The United States and regional actors may reassess their approach to Yemen given Ansarallah's resilience and the potential counterproductive effects of military pressure without political engagement.

3. Regional Diffusion: The successful model of resistance demonstrated by Ansarallah may influence other actors within Iran's Axis of Resistance, potentially leading to emulation of their organizational and security practices.

   
   

The confusion surrounding a single failed assassination attempt thus opens a window into broader regional transformations, highlighting the need for more nuanced analytical frameworks that move beyond conventional categories of state/non-state and conventional/irregular to capture the hybrid realities of contemporary conflict in the Middle East. Those who continue to view Ansarallah through outdated conceptual lenses will likely continue to mispredict their capabilities and resilience, just as Israeli intelligence misidentified their leadership targets.

• This article is written by a friend of mine from Bosnia and does not necessarily reflect the views of A.E.P. (the owner of the Website), nor does it represent an agreement with these perspectives.