Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have built up a missile and drone arsenal that allows them varied and sustained strike capabilities, as Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government it sponsors are finding out.
In addition, the Houthis also have a range of cruise missiles from Iran’s family of Quds missiles, of which the version 4 is believed to have a range of 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles), according to the Wilson Center.
Since then, there have been “tit-for-tat” military strikes, said April Longley Alley, a specialist on Yemen at the Washington Institute think tank. “The Houthis framed this campaign as blockade for blockade, airport for airport, escalation for escalation,” she said. The Houthis have several types of medium-range missiles, several of them derived from Iranian models, such as the Kheibar Shekan, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance database. The Waeid-1 and Waeid-2 aerial drones, for example, are “local copies of the Iranian Shahed-131 and Shahed-136 one-way attack UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) respectively,” the analyst Niranjan BS said. “Iran has provided critical military assistance to the Houthis, particularly with the delivery of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems,” the Middle East Institute said in a report. “Missile and UAV parts are designed and manufactured in Iran and smuggled into Yemen via small boats, container ships, or over the Oman-Yemen border, where they are assembled,” it said.
