Click to see full-size image. (The Houthis Military Media)
The Houthis (Ansar Allah) unveiled on June 26 a new ballistic missile that was used two days earlier to target the Israel-linked Liberian-flagged MSC Sarah V merchant vessel in the Arabian Sea.
Brigade General Yahya Sarea, the group’s military spokesperson, said in a brief statement that the missile, dubbed Hatem-2, is “a homemade hypersonic missile that possesses advanced technology, is accurate in hitting, and reaches long ranges.”
Video footage released by the Houthis showed the launch of the missile. The video’s text claims it is a solid-fuel missile with an intelligent control system and that multiple generations of the missile exist with various effective ranges.
The attack on the MSC Sarah V was confirmed by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a detachment of the Royal Navy, which said that a vessel was attacked on June 24 but that its crew is safe after an explosion near its hull. The attack’s location indicates it is one of the longest-range anti-ship strikes launched by the Houthis so far.
Hypersonic missiles travel and maneuver at least five times faster than the speed of sound at low altitudes in the atmosphere, which makes them extremely difficult to track and intercept.
The missile unveiled by the Houthis appears to resemble the Iranian-made Fattah-1, which Tehran claims can travel at an effective speed of up to Mach 15, or 15 times the speed of sound. The missile has a range of 1,400 kilometers.
Last March, the Sputnik news agency reported that the Houthis successfully tested a solid-fuel hypersonic ballistic missile that can reach speeds of up to Mach 8.
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have attacked dozens of vessels affiliated with Israel or owned by the United States and the UK in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea since November in response to the Israeli war and siege on the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.
In addition, the group launched dozens of drones and missiles at the southernmost Israeli city of Eilat and shot down six American-made combat drones over Yemen and nearby waters.
Since January, the U.S. and the UK have carried out hundreds of strikes against Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen in an attempt to deter the group and degrade its offensive capabilities, but to no avail.
The Hatem-2 hypersonic ballistic missile is the third weapon to be unveiled by the Houthis in recent weeks. On June 6, the group unveiled the Palestine solid-fuel ballistic missile. And on June 21, it unveiled an uncrewed suicide boat dubbed Tufan-1.
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