Yemen campus militarisation reflects a Middle East trend

Driven by the current escalation of regional armed conflicts and political instability, militarisation of universities is an increasing problem across several countries in the Middle East that transforms higher educational institutions from spaces for knowledge production, critical inquiry and research into instruments for serving military agendas and political propaganda.

Professor Magdi Tawfik Abdelhamid at Cairo’s National Research Centre in Egypt told University World News: “In the Middle East region, higher education spaces are increasingly treated as extensions of the national security state rather than sanctuaries for academic freedom.”

He noted that open debate was being replaced with restrictions for security and political goals. He cited examples in Sudan, Libya, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq.

But the latest example is happening in Yemen where the Iran-backed Houthi movement, which controls the northern part of the country, has launched an ideological and military mobilisation campaigns under slogans of “readiness” and “general mobilisation” by Yemen’s Houthi movement within the universities under its control.

It is subjecting students, academics and non-academic staff to programmes combining doctrinal indoctrination with field military training.

This was unveiled in a new report titled “Houthis Intensify Militarisation of Universities and Student Mobilisation” published on the Asharq Al-Awsat (AA) site on 11 September.

The AA report is supported by other international, regional and national reports, including the September 2026 Education Under Attack report , published by the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), and the July 2026 report titled “Strategic Dimensions of Houthi Mass-Mobilisation Discourse”, published by the Yemen & Gulf Center for Studies.

Other reports covering this phenomenon include the 2025 Women Journalists Without Chains ((WJWC)) report titled “Houthis Convert Yemeni Universities into Military Recruitment Centers” and a December 2024 report titled “The Houthis’ Militarisation Machine” published by the Institute for International Political Studies (Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale in Italy).

Intensification as conflict escalates

The Houthis’ intensification of the militarisation of universities came after a major military escalation between Houthis movement and the forces of the internationally recognised and the Yemeni government in which the Houthis on 11 September seized control of Yemen's entire Red Sea coast along with the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern gateway to a trade route that links Asia and Europe.

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 as a result of clashes between Yemeni government forces and the Houthis – also known as Ansar Allah. Over the past eleven years, the conflict has torn the country apart as the Houthi movement seized control of the capital, Sana’a, in the northern part of the country, leaving the internationally recognised Saudi-backed government to set up headquarters at Aden in the south.

Universities are centres for military mobilisation

The AA report documented cases where public and private universities in several governorates – including Sana’a, al-Hudaidah, Ibb, Dhamar, Amran, Saada, Hajjah and al-Bayda – are being systematically used for recruitment and military training.

A central pillar of the Houthis’ popular militarisation strategy is the ‘open military courses’ known as the al-Aqsa Flood. These two-week courses offer basic military training, field drills and ideological instruction, preparing university students and academics for integration into newly established military units, referred to as “Popular Mobilisation Forces”, which act as a “reserve force”, the report says.

The AA report revealed that academic staff and students are being coerced into attending al-Aqsa Flood courses, along with participation in Houthi-sponsored demonstrations.

This was confirmed by the GCPEA, which stated in its September 2026 Education Under Attack report that “Houthi forces reportedly conducted trainings at Ibb University, Ibb governorate and students and faculty were allegedly forced to participate, including in weapons training.”

Beyond military training, students and faculty members have been subjected to intense ideological pressure, with mandatory indoctrination sessions imposed across campuses. Those who refuse to comply face expulsion, detention, or other forms of persecution, “a direct assault on academic and intellectual freedoms”, the AA report states.

This was also confirmed by GCPEA, which indicated that Houthi forces allegedly abducted several students, teachers and administrative staff from Sana’a University, Maain district, Sana’a city and governorate and Al Hudaydah University, allegedly because they refused to participate in Houthi events.

According to the Academic Freedom Index 2026 update , Yemen remains in the lower tiers globally regarding the de facto protection of academic freedoms. Yemen consistently scores low on the index (historically hovering around 0.22 out of 1.0), placing it in the bottom 20–30% of assessed countries and territories worldwide.

The AA report also documented cases of academic extortion, where the granting of university degrees, faculty positions and student grades are being conditioned on participation in military and ideological activities.

The AA report indicated that several university professors who have refused to comply with these policies have been dismissed and thousands of students have been deprived of their right to fair and independent education.

In addition, the Women Journalists Without Chains (WJWC) unveiled that female students have also been subjected to compulsory military and ideological courses under the supervision of female Houthi enforcers with the aim to prepare women for ideological mobilisation and potential recruitment into Houthi-controlled security structures.

Besides introducing mandatory ideological courses at Sana’a University, including military media, the contemporary history of Yemen, the Arab-Israeli conflict and national education to promote sectarian ideas, closed and open summer camps are also organised to indoctrinate students and recruit them into military forces.

In addition, the administration of Sana’a University has also imposed a measure – devised by the Scientific Integrity Committee – that introduces external oversight of masters thesis and doctoral dissertation proposals by involving representatives linked to the Houthi authorities. Consequently, research topics are now scrutinised based on political and religious criteria just as much as academic ones.

Threat to academic freedoms

WJWC said the Housthi's actions for militarising universities pose “a grave threat to academic freedoms” and violate international human rights laws and multiple international agreements.

These agreements include Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , which guarantees the right to education free from coercion, Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (IGCPR ), which protects freedom of thought and belief, and Article 10 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women , which ensures women’s right to education without restrictions.

Additionally, these actions contravene the Geneva Conventions , which prohibit the recruitment of civilians into armed conflicts.

Risks of militarising universities

Originally from Yemen, Mohamed Almahfali , associate professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Gothenburg University in Sweden, told University World News the current developments along Yemen’s Red Sea coast appear to be connected to a broader regional confrontation between Iran and the US and the strategic importance of the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.

He said the Houthis’ strategy for militarisation of universities creates multiple and serious risks.

“First, it can directly threaten the safety and security of academics and students. Second, it transforms higher educational institutions from spaces for knowledge production, critical inquiry and research into instruments that can serve military agendas and political propaganda.

“It also contributes to the simplification and politicisation of knowledge and undermines the independence of academic institutions,” Almahfali explained.

He said the continued militarisation of higher education deepens the current conflict and “mines the future” of Yemen by creating additional structural obstacles to recovery, reconstruction and development.

“Even if the armed conflict were to end in the short term, the long-term consequences for higher education, academic freedom, research and human capital would remain profound,” Almahfali noted.

Militarisation rising across Middle East

Abdelhamid said campus militarisation is not unique to Yemen. “It is rising sharply across the Middle East (ME) countries and beyond, driven by a volatile mix of severe regional armed conflicts and intense domestic political crackdowns on dissent.”

In Sudan, Libya, Iran, Lebanon and Iraq, universities face risks ranging from physical security to restricted academic freedom impacting research topics, publications and educational programmes, along with institutional capture and control over appointments and other administrative decisions and regulations, loss of academics and students or forced recruitment and conflict damaged from military use or from the institution becoming a military target, he said.

For example, in Sudan, the civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has caused the extensive militarisation, occupation and destruction of higher education institutions across the country, according to the October 2025 study titled “Universities Under Siege: The impact of the Sudanese war on the sustainability of higher education in Sudan”.

In Libya, the militarisation and presence of armed groups on university campuses have disrupted higher education, turning centres of learning into sites of conflict, intimidation and structural damage, according to a 2026 report titled “Fragmented Libya: The reign of militias”, which indicated that professors and students have been targeted in broader waves of militia-led kidnappings and arbitrary detentions, creating an atmosphere of constant insecurity that routinely forces the suspension of classes and exams.

In Iran, universities have been turned into direct security and military battlegrounds amid domestic protests and the broader US-Israeli conflict through ideological vetting, pervasive surveillance and the purging of dissenting scholars, according to a 2026 study titled “Purging Minds Through Silencing Voices: Academic freedom under Islamic Republic of Iran’s security apparatus aftermath of woman, life, freedom movement”.

Also, the paramilitary Basij organisation maintains offices inside Iranian universities to control student activism, according to 2026 study titled “I don’t want to be a Zirabzan or Mokhber, but they made me: The informant culture of spying on everyday life of citizens in the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

The Iranian regime also recruited and embedded personnel from regional militant networks , such as popular mobilisation forces – the umbrella group of Iraqi militias linked to pro-Iranian parties – directly into major universities.

In Lebanon, the intersection of higher education and militarisation primarily involves the exploitation, occupation, or targeting of academic spaces by domestic political-militant factions and regional conflicts.

For example, university mobilisation of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and militant group backed by Iran, serves as an ideological incubator and recruitment pipeline within Lebanese higher education, according to a December 2025 report titled “Hezbollah’s educational mobilisation”.

In Iraq, the militarisation of universities involves armed militias and political factions infiltrating higher education to expand their ideological influence, secure funding and recruit students, according to an August 2025 study titled “Iraq: Armed influence in education and sub-national governance and their implications for statehood”.

Additionally, a 2024 report titled “Injecting New Blood into Militias: The gradual takeover of Iraqi higher education by the popular mobilisation forces” indicated that the Popular Mobilisation Forces and associated networks are systematically embedding themselves into higher education to secure ideological loyalty, administrative control and future recruits.

Abdelhamid said campus militarisation may also lead to silencing dissent and often treat student protests and critical faculty speech as security threats instead of normal parts of education.

Pushing mandatory military training or nationalist courses into university classrooms, reducing what professors can freely teach, weakens universities as independent centres of knowledge and engines of social and economic development and restricts places for critical research, innovation, dialogue and debate, Abdelhamid indicated.

Impact on intra-regional collaboration

He said increasing campus militarisation across the Middle East also disrupts international and intra-regional higher education collaboration by threatening physical safety for both local and international students, restricting mobility because of safety anxieties, triggering internet blackouts that cut institutions off from global digital resources, and forcing institutional closures and shifts to online-only learning across multiple countries, along with slowing international partnership negotiations as well as shifting academic priorities toward national security.

“Campus militarisation also leads to cross-border higher educational initiatives being viewed through a geopolitical lens of national security rather than mutual cultural or economic exchange, complicating long-term regional integration and knowledge-economy transitions,” Abdelhamid added.

Immediate actions must be taken to ensure universities and educational institutions remain places of learning, free from coercion and militarisation, Abdelhamid said.

“Safeguarding universities from militarisation requires protecting academic freedom, ensuring student safety and maintaining higher education institutions as spaces for open, peaceful dialogue,” Abdelhamid indicated.

“The international academic community, human rights organisations and global higher education institutions must join forces to protect students and faculty members from the impact of campus militarisation,” Abdelhamid concluded.