Inside an armoured vehicle presented as captured from Saudi-backed forces, the driver talks to the cameraman. His cheek bulges. Four other men are aboard, including two partly obscured figures lying in the rear who appear dazed and barely responsive. Reporting notes on the October 17, 2026 Houthi military-media video describe bulging cheeks on all five men, consistent with khat chewing.
Other clips described for this report show the same practice around different operations. Men chew beside destroyed armour and gather with packed cheeks in footage of fighting around Jabal Habshi in Taiz. One speaker struggles to talk around the contents of his mouth; another has green leaves visibly lodged inside it. The military-media website carries releases matching the Taiz operation and surrender-related footage dated October 12 and October 10.
These are not accusations packaged by an enemy. The Houthis’ own media operation publishes the scenes. Their repeated inclusion suggests that chewing is accepted among at least some of those filmed, rather than something to conceal. The footage’s strongest evidence is that openness: a packed mouth can obstruct speech, but a short recording cannot establish why someone is barely responsive.
The scenes raise a question that extends beyond the appearance of individual fighters. What role does a familiar psychoactive substance acquire when it becomes part of military life—and when the men using it are living through war?
Khat is both a social custom and a drug. Its leaves contain cathinone and cathine, stimulants that can produce euphoria and feelings of increased alertness. The European Union Drugs Agency describes cathinone’s effects as qualitatively similar to those of amphetamine, although less potent. Those effects offer a plausible attraction during military service; they do not establish better judgment or combat performance.
The habit does not necessarily begin at the front. A World Bank survey conducted in 2006 among 4,027 people older than 12 across seven Yemeni governorates found that 72% of male respondents and 32.6% of female respondents chewed khat. Among male users, about two-thirds said they had started because their friends and family chewed. These are historical findings, not current prevalence estimates, but they establish how deeply consumption was embedded before the present conflict.
That familiarity can shape whether users regard their consumption as drug-taking at all. A study published in BMC Public Health in 2010, based on interviews with 320 people in Yemen’s Wadi Dhar in 2007, found that male consumers strongly rejected describing khat as a drug. They also believed it improved memory and concentration. Those were reported beliefs, not demonstrated improvements in either ability. The findings help explain how consumption that attracts an outsider’s attention can appear unremarkable to the person chewing.
More recent research shows substantial use before adulthood. A 2024 study of 7,505 students aged 13–19, surveyed at 42 schools in five Yemeni cities during 2021–2022, found that 42.4% reported chewing khat in the previous 30 days. The researchers used convenience sampling, so the results cannot establish a national rate for all Yemeni adolescents. They nevertheless show that, among the students reached, consumption was already common.
These civilian surveys do not measure consumption among Houthi fighters. They provide the background against which the footage should be understood: military service need not introduce a man to khat for the drug to become part of his experience of war.
War can give an existing habit an additional place in daily routines. A 2023 report by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies described front-line activity sometimes pausing in the afternoon so soldiers could chew. It also reported that some young men joined militias knowing they would receive part of their compensation in khat. In those accounts, access to the drug was not merely a private matter; it formed part of the incentive to enlist.
That changes the significance of the chewing visible in military footage. Where an armed group supplies a substance or accommodates its consumption, the habit can become embedded in service itself. A recruit may arrive already using it and find his new surroundings organised partly around its availability. This is an inference from the reported arrangements, not evidence of a Houthi-wide distribution policy or the personal history of the men filmed.
The distinction is important. Repeated scenes of packed cheeks do not establish how many fighters consume khat, how much they take or whether commanders encourage it. They do show why treating every appearance as an isolated case misses the question of acceptance within the unit.
The wish to alter mood is not confined to fighters—or to Yemen. A survey in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan region, conducted in 2012 and published in PLOS One in 2015, found that 28.7% of 4,305 respondents attending selected primary healthcare centres reported khat use in the preceding month. Enjoyment was the most commonly reported motive. Among respondents answering the relevant question, 46.6% cited relieving tension. These were regional civilian findings, not national Saudi figures or evidence about the armed forces.
Relieving everyday tension and trying to suppress traumatic memories are not the same thing. Research among combatants, however, has documented the latter.
A 2009 study of Somali combatants analysed interviews with 8,124 members of armed groups, drawn from seven regional convenience samples collected in 2003. Respondents with post-traumatic stress disorder used khat more frequently; among chewers, those with PTSD reported heavier consumption than those without it. The greatest consumption was among respondents with PTSD who said drugs helped them forget their wartime experiences.
That is evidence of attempted coping based on combatants’ own accounts, rather than interpretation of their appearance. It gives a basis for investigating the same question in Yemen, without establishing why any particular fighter in these clips uses khat.
The violence surrounding Yemeni combatants makes the question relevant. UN investigators have documented unlawful attacks, arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearances involving parties to the conflict. Their 2021 reporting attributed violations to the Yemeni government, coalition members, the Southern Transitional Council and Houthi authorities, and said some could amount to international crimes.
Reuters reported on October 6, 2026, that it had verified footage showing Yemeni government forces driving armoured vehicles over Houthi opponents near Bab el-Mandeb. One sequence showed a vehicle returning to strike two unarmed men with their hands raised. The Houthis called the footage evidence of war crimes. Giants Brigade spokesperson Asil al-Saqladi said an investigation was underway and alleged that some Houthi fighters had fired after his forces believed they were surrendering.
Nothing in that reporting establishes that the victims had consumed khat. Its relevance here is the environment of violence, not a claim that drugs explain their behaviour or that this particular incident explains another fighter’s consumption.
The coping question must therefore remain attached to evidence about the person using the substance. A fighter’s account of chewing more after combat, captivity or loss would establish something that footage alone cannot: the connection between his experience and his use.
The research on coping also contains a warning. The Somali combatant study found paranoid symptoms most frequent among excessive khat users with PTSD. Its cross-sectional design could not establish the direction of causation, and it did not demonstrate that khat effectively treated trauma.
Research in Yemen shows how consumption can become demanding in its own right. A study published in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal in 2017 interviewed 270 existing khat users. They reported chewing for an average of 5.2 hours a day on 5.7 days a week. Those screening positive for dependence described longer and more frequent sessions, greater negative mood and more disturbed sleep. These were associations among users, not proof that everyone who chews becomes dependent.
Those findings complicate the idea of khat as a straightforward means of enduring war. The European Union Drugs Agency describes low mood, irritability and difficulty sleeping as possible effects following stimulation, while frequent high-dose use can provoke psychotic reactions. The condition a person seeks while chewing and the condition he experiences afterwards may be very different.
A fighter seeking relief from distress could consequently find himself using a substance associated with further problems with mood and sleep. That possibility warrants attention, although it has not been demonstrated for the individuals filmed. Feeling that a drug helps is not the same as evidence that it is improving mental health.
The Houthi releases put consumption in public view, but leave the men’s personal histories outside the frame. They cannot explain whether an individual chews for habit, pleasure, stimulation or escape. The research makes the concern more substantial than the spectacle of a man struggling to speak with leaves in his mouth: something used to get through the day may become an additional burden, rather than a way out of distress.