SANA, Yemen — Before the war, the Officers Club in downtown Sana was a prime recreation destination, known for its pool and garden cafe.

Now, like much of Sana, the Yemeni capital, its bombed-out remnants are controlled by gun-wielding rebels from the group known as the Houthis. Dressed in ragtag uniforms and brimming with Islamist fervor, they pointed out holes from airstrikes and the rubble that had once been the Police Academy.

Still, they insisted that their seizure of the capital had been good for Yemen.

“There was too much corruption and looting before,” said Masoud Saad, 19, who had dropped out of middle school to become a fighter. “We wanted to present the true religion of God in a correct way.”

Once a provincial militant movement in the mountains of northern Yemen, the Houthis surged to prominence after they seized control of the country’s northwest in 2014. Since then, they have pushed the national government into exile and set off a new Middle Eastern war in which they are in the cross hairs of an intensive bombardment campaign by Saudi Arabia and a coalition of Arab countries.