South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Al Monitor on the United States maintaining an intelligence relationship with Houthis:
Senior US intelligence official Michael Vickers said Jan. 21 that the United States is continuing attacks on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) despite ongoing violence in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and has an intelligence relationship with the Houthi insurgent group that has seized much of the capital since September.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, as Houthi fighters surrounded the residence of Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Vickers, a special forces veteran and current undersecretary of defense for intelligence, presented a more nuanced view of the Houthis’ recent advances and aims than has been reported in much of the Western and Sunni Gulf media.