Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi

Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi (Arabic: حسين بدر الدين الحوثي; also spelled Hussein Badr Eddin al-Houthi) (1956 – 10 September 2004) was a Zaidi religious leader and former member of the Yemeni parliament for the Al-Haqq Islamic party between 1993 and 1997. He was an instrumental figure in the Sa'dah conflict against the Yemeni government, which began in 2004. Al-Houthi, who was a one-time rising political aspirant in Yemen, had wide religious and tribal backing in northern Yemen's mountainous regions. Al-Houthi was accused by the Ali Abdullah Saleh regime of trying to set himself up as Imam, of setting up unlicensed religious centers, of creating an armed group called Shabab al-Muomineen (English: Believing Youth), and of staging violent anti-American and anti-Israeli protests, as Al-Houthi's followers felt Yemen's government was too closely allied with the United States.

According to a Sheik al-Houthi disciple, he had lived part of his life with his family in Qom, Iran. He claimed also that Al-Houthi's relationship with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was similar to Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah.

On 18 June 2004, Yemeni police arrested 640 followers of Hussein who were demonstrating in front of the Sana'a Grand Mosque, and two days later the Yemeni government offered a bounty of $55,000.00 for al-Houthi's capture and launched an operation aimed at ending his alleged rebellion. In July, Yemen Army forces had killed 25 al-Houthi supporters and upgraded the bounty for the Shi'ite cleric to $75,500.00 (10 million rials). After months of battles between Yemeni security forces and the Believing Youth, on 10 September the Yemeni Interior and Defense Ministries released a statement in which they declared that Sheikh al-Houthi had been killed with twenty of his aides in the Marran district, Saada Governorate.

On 5 June 2013, tens of thousands of Yemeni Shi'ites attended the re-burial of the remains of al-Houthi in Sa'dah, where armed rebels were deployed in large numbers. The new Yemeni government had turned over the remains of al-Houthi to his family on 28 December 2012 as a goodwill gesture to bolster national reconciliation talks. The previous government of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who had stepped down in 2012 after a popular uprising, originally buried al-Houthi in 2004 at the Sana'a central prison to prevent his grave becoming a shrine for the Zaidis. A representative of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi attended the funeral, but a Houthi spokesman accused the central government of refusing to give visas to several dignitaries who wanted to travel to Yemen to attend the ceremony, and of tearing down pictures of al-Houthi put up in the Yemeni capital.

The Zaydi militants, known as the Houthis, take their name from al-Houthi, his brothers Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, Yahia Badreddin al-Houthi are Abdul-Karim al-Houthi also leaders of the Houthi Rebels.