Later that year they bombed oil terminals on the coast to prevent their foes exporting the fuel. But this July the government said it would resume shipments. Since then the Houthis have struck Marib heavily. Their fighters could make another push for its resources. Even if they do not capture the wells, they may hope to force the government to share its revenues. In response, the government has also been talking up a fight. The truce four years ago was supposed to lead to a peace deal, but instead the Houthis have consolidated their power and strengthened their partnership with Iran. Giving them a bloody nose could help the government—whose leaders live mostly in the Saudi capital, Riyadh—regain credibility in Yemen. Such talk may mostly be intended to boost morale. But the anti-Houthi forces, who spent much of the winter fighting among themselves, are showing a more united front. The government has disbanded the Southern Transitional Council, a secessionist outfit backed by the UAE, bringing some of its troops under the national army’s control. Earlier this year tribal unrest flared in the Houthi-run region of Jawf, kindling hopes that the rebels’ authority is weakening. Government troops have become more adept at deploying drones, long one of the Houthis’ advantages. Still, they face a formidable foe. Limited strikes by Saudi and government soldiers have failed to deter the rebels. The Houthis have endured bigger and more targeted campaigns in the past. Last summer Israeli strikes killed most of the group’s civilian rulers, but it quickly recovered. Defeating the Houthis would be hard. When they swept into Sana’a in 2014, they did so in defiance of Iran, which urged restraint. Now their confidence comes from a position of strength. When America targeted them in 2025, the group shot down seven American Reaper drones and nearly hit several fighter jets. Last month they claimed to have downed a Turkish-made Bayraktar drone operated by the Saudis. The Houthis have access to fibre- optic drones that cannot be jammed. Whereas the group used to import finished weapons from Iran, it now builds much of its arsenal from small components smuggled through Oman and the UAE or hidden in dhows sailing from the Horn of Africa. Some Houthi drones can be built almost entirely without Iranian parts. “They have been

able to reconstitute capabilities that were damaged or destroyed—much more quickly than people anticipated,” says Peter Salisbury of Columbia University in New York. Geography is also an advantage. The highlands that the rebels control are easy to defend, especially given their heavy use of landmines. Their territory includes a system of caves and bunkers previously held by the army. Satellite evidence suggests these are being expanded. Government forces recently seized tunnelling equipment destined for Houthi ports. All this should worry the official government. Saudi or American support could bolster its soldiers on the ground. Donald Trump has threatened the Houthis with a “major military punishment”. But the costs would be high. Mr Houthi speaks fondly of Yemen’s reputation as a “graveyard of invaders”. He may yet prove correct. ■ This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2026/08/25/how-the-houthis-have- become-the-most-fearsome-of-irans-allies

Middle East & Africa | Africa Inc. The quiet tycoons powering Africa’s rise Secretive family conglomerates are the lifeblood of African capitalism Aug 27th 2026 IN SOME WAYS Mo Dewji is an anomaly. The charismatic tycoon is currently the only billionaire in east Africa, and the youngest on the continent. By the reticent standards of Africa’s corporate titans, the 51-year- old is comfortable in the limelight. Mr Dewji readily gives interviews, including recently to The Economist. He posts frequently to over 2m followers on X. In other respects Mr Dewji, who owns MeTL Group, a Tanzanian conglomerate founded by his father in the 1970s, is typical. Many large African firms fit this mould of diversified, family-owned businesses. Domestic champions are on the rise. “We are starting to see bigger and bigger conglomerates controlled by Africans,” says Acha Leke, McKinsey’s

chairman for Africa. The consultancy says two-thirds of companies on the continent with annual revenues exceeding $1bn are now locally owned and headquartered; the subsidiaries of foreign multinationals that once dominated African business account for barely 30%. Large domestic conglomerates have accompanied industrial growth everywhere from Gilded Age America to post-war South Korea and contemporary India. So the shift could prove transformative. For many outsiders the rise of corporate Africa has one face: Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man. The Nigerian industrialist, whose interests range from cement to fertiliser across 17 African countries, opened the continent’s largest oil refinery in 2023. He has plans for a second, in Kenya. By 2030 he wants the Dangote Group to be Africa’s first $100bn firm. Others are snapping at his heels. In Nigeria he faces a rival in Abdul Samad Rabiu, the founder of BUA Group and scion of another industrial dynasty from the northern city of Kano. Mr Rabiu, who like Mr Dangote made his fortune in cement, as well as sugar and other consumer goods, was named Africa’s second richest person in May, when Bloomberg valued his net worth at around $19bn. (That has since fallen to about $14bn.) He too has ambitious expansion plans, for instance turning his subsidiary, BUA Foods, into Nigeria’s biggest food manufacturer by 2027. In Tanzania Mr Dewji seeks to grow MeTL into a $10bn venture by 2030, in part by pushing into mining and mineral processing. In the longer run, he tells The Economist, he wants to turn it into an e-commerce company. The attention paid to Mr Dangote reflects the fact that big industrial firms like his are still a rarity in Africa. In 2022 McKinsey counted 345 companies with revenues over $1bn. (There are only 26 more today.) According to the latest Africa Wealth Report, an annual overview of the continent’s private wealth, 25 of Africa’s 28 billionaires today hail from four of its five biggest economies. “It is very hard to build a billion-dollar business if you are not in Nigeria, South Africa or Egypt,” says Mr Leke. (The fourth is Morocco.) Even fewer such firms are owned by black Africans. In east Africa many of the biggest firms are owned by families of Asian origin, like Mr Dewji’s in Tanzania. In west Africa some of the wealthiest industrialists have Lebanese roots, among them the Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire Gilbert Chagoury.

“Africans came very late to the capital accumulation party,” notes John Ngumi, a Kenyan investment banker. Trading networks built by Asian and Lebanese families under colonial rule gave them a headstart. In Tanzania, which was run by socialists until the 1980s, black Africans are only now catching up. Many hope to follow Mr Dangote. The continent’s leading industrial firms often began as traders before branching into manufacturing and other sectors. The need to diversify stems in part from Africa’s patchwork of small, fragmented markets. “When you’re dealing with an economy that is not big enough, you end up doing a multitude of businesses,” says Mr Dewji. He cites milling as a common example of vertical integration in the region: “If you do wheat milling or maize milling or rice milling, you need polypropylene bags. So you backward-integrate into polypropylene bags.” Success often hinges on cosy relationships with officials. “I can’t think of any major industrialist that doesn’t have access to government and policy,” says Freda Yawson of the African Centre for Economic Transformation, a think-tank in Ghana. Mr Dangote’s rise was aided by ties to Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, whose government introduced policies that favoured his cement, sugar and rice businesses over foreign competitors. Mr Rabiu is known to be close to the current president, Bola Tinubu. Mr Dewji used to be an MP for Tanzania’s ruling party. To avoid friction with political leaders many opt to stay out of the limelight. The media-shy Mr Rabiu perhaps learnt from the example of his father, who was arrested following a coup in Nigeria in 1983. Though Mr Dangote is comparatively outspoken, he has, says Ken Opalo of Georgetown University, clearly “picked a lane”—meaning he keeps his nose out of politics. Another way to spread political risk is to expand abroad. Many aspiring Dangotes are doing just that. Rostam Azizi, another Tanzanian magnate who was named the country’s first dollar billionaire in 2013, is building in Kenya what he says will be Africa’s largest liquefied-petroleum-gas terminal. Over the next decade he says he will extend his gas-distribution business “from Ethiopia to South Africa”. He will be helped by the fact that, thanks to the East African Community, the most successful of Africa’s regional blocs,