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The Briefing Room: Iran's Plan for the Houthis, Trouble in South Ossetia, The LRA Returns.

Name: The Briefing Room: Iran's Plan for the Houthis, Trouble in…
Uploaded: 2026-09-25T20:00:26.000Z
Duration: PT1133.041667S
Channel: Simon Whistler
Description: Iran's state-linked press is urging the Houthis to conquer all of Yemen, a Russian official just won South Ossetia's presidency, and the Lord's Resistance Army is spreading again in the Central African Republic.

Iran's state-linked press is urging the Houthis to conquer all of Yemen, a Russian official just won South Ossetia's presidency, and the Lord's Resistance Army is spreading again in the Central African Republic.

Simon Whistler • September 25, 2026

The Briefing Room: Iran's Plan for the Houthis, Trouble in South Ossetia, The LRA Returns.

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Note: this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or inconsistencies.

Welcome back to The Briefing Room, the weekly series that makes a point of peeking into all of the shadowy, forgotten corners of the globe and uncovering hidden stories that are just as depressing as the headlines.

This week we're going to evaluate an Iranian proposal for Yemen's Houthi rebels, asking whether the Houthis should make the most of their recent conquests by trying to take over the rest of the country.

Then we're headed to the breakaway state of South Assisi, where the territory's increasing dependence on Russia is looking more and more like the lead-up to annexation.

Finally, we're heading to Central Africa to address a resurgent threat that's oh so 2012: the Lord's Resistance Army, as the group starts to expand its operations across the Central African Republic. It's often been said in this world that no news is good news, and well, we've got a lot of news to share today, so you can make of that what you will.

First, we've got to stop over in Yemen to check up on the Houthi rebels after their recent capture of the country's Red Sea coastline.

On the ground, the Houthis have been rather busy, planning and then beginning an advance into key highland areas around the besieged city of Taiz, as well as in the neighboring province of Lahij.

There, they hope to capture strategic vantage points that will give them a full view of passing trade ships and simultaneously cut off a series of choke points, making it impossible for the Yemeni government to easily regain access to the Red Sea coast.

Over the weekend, the Houthis narrowly dodged a wave of airstrikes from the United States, when US President Donald Trump nearly launched an attack on Sunday in support of Saudi Arabia, but ultimately reversed his decision at the last moment.

Yet, as the Houthis cement their control over the Red Sea coastline, the rest of the world remains focused on dealing with their presence without dealing with the organization directly. Other than a small handful of exceptions, the United States among them, most countries have avoided negotiating with the Houthis if they can help it.

Instead, countries like Pakistan and even China have chosen to lean on the Houthis' backer on the global stage: Iran.

Across the last decade and more, Iran has financed the Houthis, trained them, and supplied them with weapons similar to its relationships with Hezbollah, Hamas, and the many pro-Iran militias of Iraq. But as we've covered in prior episodes on Warfronts, the Iran-Houthi relationship just isn't that simple.

Hezbollah or Hamas or the Iraqi militias, those are true proxy forces, they might have limited ambitions of their own, but they can be relied upon to do what Iran says, when Iran says, anytime.

The same cannot be said of the Houthis, who've been one part Iranian proxy, but one part Iranian ally. They generally pursue goals that align with Iran, but when those interests diverge, the Houthis are happy to strike out on their own.

So when other nations prevail upon Iran to try and rein in the Houthi offensive, they're unlikely to achieve any real success.

But it's considerably more interesting to see the Houthis and Iran begin operating in alignment with each other now that they've gained the ability to join forces and blockade two vital sea lanes at once.

That's why the France team found it rather curious when an Iranian Revolutionary Guard affiliated paper published an analysis last week laying out a map for the Houthis to take control of all of Yemen.

According to that paper, the Houthis could become the quote "single centre of power in Yemen" and convert their control over the territory into status, taking on the role of a regional power.

The analysis envisions the Houthis leveraging their control over the Red Sea coastline, something that the Houthis are already doing, in order to try and boost their legitimacy as a proto-state that has to win.

But beyond a simple play for legitimacy, this analysis called for the Houthis to use their control of the Red Sea coastline to renegotiate a much broader security order both over the body of water itself and for the rest of the Arabian Peninsula.

It's an ambitious plan, laid out in front of the Houthis like somebody else's to-do list, but it's worth taking seriously.

Iran can't tell the Houthis what to do, or what not to do, but it can influence the Houthis substantially by providing or withdrawing its support. If the Houthis are doing something Iran likes, Iran might surge cash, weapons, or other support to ease their way.

If the Houthis are doing something Iran opposes, Iran understands that it can't stop them, but it's certainly not going to help.

So, as we consider this Iranian proposal, we'd like to answer the question that came up for our team as we were reading it: would the Houthis even want to capture all of Yemen? Now, simply on the basis of armed force, the Houthis certainly have a good shot at capturing, capturing the country in its entirety.

They already control the lands where roughly 80% of all Yemenis live, and if recent Houthi propaganda is to be taken seriously, the group is trying to press as many people as it can into the Houthi fighting force.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government is very weak by an international standard, and although it's got better conventional fighting equipment than the Houthis, its forces are disorganized, demoralized, and somewhat depleted. Saudi air support has proved woefully inadequate to push the Houthis back, and the rest of the world's nowhere to be seen.

The real question is, what's going on?

The real question for the Houthis is whether the rest of Yemen would be as much trouble as it's worth.

Houthi territory is well consolidated at this point, Yemenis under Houthi rule are well accustomed to their situation, and while the Houthi government has gone through troubled times recently, they're broadly understood to be secure in their leadership of Western Yemen. Eastern Yemen, however, is a very different beast.

During most of the Cold War, Yemen was divided into two countries with diametrically opposed ideologies. The Yemen Arab Republic, broadly on the territory that the Houthis control today, and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.

In modern times, the Yemeni East and South have been divided between the internationally recognized governments and separatist forces, with those separatist militias nearly gaining control of the territory late last year, until they were driven out of this part of Yemen in a Saudi-backed counter-offensive.

The area is also home to several dangerous jihadist groups, including the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. To control this part of Yemen, the Houthis would need to dramatically expand their territorial holdings, but then disperse their firepower. The main target of their fight is across a vast area in order to try and hold that territory.

They'll be much easier for their rivals to target, and slowly pick off, whether it's the separatists, the jihadists, or the Saudi-backed soldiers and tribal militias. There's a reason that this part of Yemen is historically so hard to control for whatever group happens to rule over the capital of Sana'a.

So the other question to ask is this: what could the Houthis capture in Eastern Yemen that would make the territory worth their trouble?

Along the southern coastline, the group is already starting to threaten the city of Eid in, currently the seat of power for the internationally recognized government. Eidin, however, is basically a straight shot southward from Sana'a, and capturing it would leave the eastern region untouched.

Out in the Gulf of Eidin, the Houthis could try to stage an attack on the island of Socotra, but it's under de facto control of the Yemeni separatist group we've mentioned earlier, which is in turn backed militarily by the UAE.

The eastern Yemeni heartland, meanwhile, does contain oil fields, which historically made up about a third of Yemen's GDP. But... If the Houthis capture those oil fields

They'd be taking a hell of a development project. During Yemen's peak years, in the early 2000s, those fields produced around 440,000 barrels of oil a day, but today they produce only around 15,000.

Take control of those areas and the Houthis have a shot at dramatically increasing their wealth, but they'd also have to hold that infrastructure for years while it's rehabilitated, trying to avoid rebel or jihadist attacks that would either force them off the land or sabotage or destroy the infrastructure directly.

All told... It's not out of the question that the Houthis would try and take the entire country of Yemen sometime soon. But it's going to be a very tall order, and Iran's encouragement may not be enough to push the Houthis into action before they're ready of their own accord.

THE BREAKAWAY REGION OF SOUTH ASSECHIA Next up, we turn to the breakaway region of South Assisi, internationally recognized as a part of the nation of Georgia, but a far closer friend to its northern neighbor, Russia. Last week, Russia held a tightly controlled, rather shamblesharing, war-torn border between the two countries.

It was the first in the world, rather shambolic, nationwide vote for the state Duma, one in which the country's leading opposition party was banned and Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party won nearly 80% of the seats in the legislature.

But South Assisi held its own vote over the same few days, and there, too, the results appeared to be victory for Putin and his allies. South Assisi's new president-elect is a man named Marat Kamberlov, aged 61, who's held a wide range of government positions, particularly posts dealing with education. But Kamberlov didn't run for office.

Kamberlov didn't hold those prior positions in South Assisi. In fact, he's had virtually no connection to South Assisi until earlier this year. Instead, he hails from North Assisi, very much a Russian blast, and he held his earlier posts across the Russian government.

He only popped up in South Assisi this past June, when he was appointed prime minister after the former premier left his post and became an advisor for Vladimir Putin himself. Russia, of course, doesn't particularly care about any appearance of impropriety here.

Instead, Moscow threw its paw behind Kamberlov when he became South Assisi's PM, and then did the same when he was elected to the presidency.

As Russia explained it, "The results demonstrate South Assisi and society's widespread desire for domestic political stability, progress, and the comprehensive development of ties with the Russian Federation." According to Russian state media, Kamberlov won his election with a vote share of 85%, short of Chechen dictator Ramzan Kadyrov, who won with an

Official vote share of 90% of 69.85%.

But Kamberlov still came away with a respectable margin by Kremlin standards. Georgia, of course, saw the situation very differently.

According to Tbilisi, the decision to open elections in South Assisi at the same time as the Russian state Duma elections was neither a coincidence nor even a courtesy from South Assisi, but instead an effort to deepen perceptions that South Assisi affairs are basically Russian affairs.

Because South Assisi is a breakaway republic, Georgia maintains that the election itself was an affront to Georgian society. In a statement to the Kremlin, Georgia said that the Kremlin's "pro-Russia bloggers" were allowed to serve as election monitors.

Kamberlov's only serious rival was barred from participating, partially on the grounds that he isn't fluent in Assisian, despite the fact that Kamberlov very clearly didn't meet another requirement for the presidency: 10 years of residency in South Assisi.

Instead, Kamberlov ran alongside a handful of paper candidates who had been chosen to give the appearance of competition, including a former KGB agent and a retired lieutenant colonel in Russia's Interior Ministry.

The election came as the latest confirmation of a troubling but predictable trend in South Assisi, where Russian influence has graduated past the support of a Russian-friendly breakaway government and is now starting to look like Moscow laying the groundwork for assimilation.

Kamberlov took over the premiership a few months ago, just weeks after his predecessor signed a treaty with Russia that granted Moscow immense leverage over South Assisi's defense and its foreign policy, while preparing to integrate South Assisi's energy grid with Russia.

At the time, even Georgia's pro-Russian government slammed the deal as "de facto annexation," pointing out that the deal would only deepen South Assisi's pre-existing dependence on Russia.

This is not a particularly self-sufficient place: it's home to roughly 56,000 people, according to the official numbers, across less than 4,000 square kilometers, including highly mountainous terrain, pockmarked with glaciers.

Farming is difficult, energy resources are scarce, and while the region enjoys substantial mineral deposits and a large amount of oil and gas, the Russian government will not be able to do much about it. The Russian government is also not able to do much about it, and the Russian government is not able to do much about it.

The Russian government is also not able to do much about it.

The Russian government is also not able to do much about it. The Russian government is also not able to do much about it. The Russian government is also not able to do much about it.

The Russian government is also not able to do much about it. The Russian government is also not able to do much about it. Look at all of South Ossetia's personnel changes taken together, and it's easy enough to see what Russia's larger strategy might be.

South Ossetia is now led by a Russian bureaucrat, who won an easy electoral victory over other candidates loyal to the Russian state, while the region's former premier has got off to advise Putin personally. The government in Tbilisi may publicly express its outrage, but that same government has nothing to do with it.

Partially because it would be insane for Georgia to pick a fight with Russia under any circumstances, and partially because the ruling Georgian Dream Party is far more pro-Russian than its recent predecessors.

The real question at this stage is what Georgia would do if Russia simply continues on its current course, deepening ties with South Ossetia even further, and finally annexing it. After dealing with such severe setbacks in Ukraine, Russia would love an opportunity to demonstrate that it can still add new territory.

The Russian government is now ready to take a step forward, and it's time to take a step forward.

The Russian government is now ready to take a step forward, and it's time to take a step forward. The Russian government is now ready to take a step forward, and it's time to take a step forward. The Russian government is now ready to take a step forward, and it's time to take a step forward.

The Russian government is now ready to take a step forward, and it's time to take a step forward.

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