The Media Ignores the Yemen Missile Program. This Infographic Details Everything

The revolutionary government led by Ansarullah began domestic Yemen missile production almost immediately after Saudi Arabia initiated its airstrike campaign in March of 2015. Riyadh’s goal at the time was to reinstate the disgraced and ousted President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi who Yemenis widely consider a puppet figure for Saudi Arabia and Western powers. Hadi fled the country by boat and currently resides in Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s secondary goal was to squash the growing Ansarullah movement which mainstream media outlets simply refer to as “the Houthis.”

However, the Saudi coalition and its allies severely underestimated the organization, strength, and political power of the Ansarullah movement. Riyadh launched its war with little analysis of the situation or regard for the long-term outcome. It seems that the coalition foolishly believed its aggression wouldn’t last more than a few months, let alone over four years. (The end of March will mark the four-year anniversary.)

“It is very clear that the Saudis did not do their homework before they went into Yemen,”Farea al-Muslimi, a Yemeni visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, Lebanon told the New York Times in 2015. “They thought it would be really easy, but it has not turned out that way.”

In fact, just a few days after beginning air raids in March of 2015, Saudi Arabia proudly announced that it had destroyed Ansarullah’s weapon stockpiles. Little did the coalition know that four years later it would face unprecedented resistance from the ever-growing Yemen missile program.

A History of the Yemen Missile Program for Defense

On June 6, 2015, just a few months after the Saudis proudly announced destroying weapons stockpiles, Yemen’s Rocketry Force revealed its first domestically produced ballistic missile: a modified Scud with a range of over 800 km which Yemeni forces used to attack the King Khalid Bin Abdulaziz Airport in southern Saudi Arabia.

To the surprise of Saudi Arabia and its allies, Yemen’s missile production continued expanding at a rapid rate.

On September 7 of 2016, Yemen’s Rocketry Force unveiled a major advancement: the Burkan H-1, a ballistic missile with a range of 800. Yemen’s military engineers continued working to create various versions of the Burkan missile before revealing the Burkan H-2 on July 22 of 2017.

With the Burkan H-2, Yemeni missiles evaded US Patriot missile defense systems for the first time on their way to the King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh.

In March of 2018, Yemen’s Rocketry Force revealed the Badr-1: a short-range missile system. On its maiden launch, the Badr-1 struck a Saudi Aramco facility in Najran province. In a tit-for-tat strategy, Yemeni forces have expanded their operations into three Saudi provinces in retaliation for the ongoing airstrike campaign. The Badr-1P, a smart missile system, came into production a few months later.

What or Who is Behind the Yemen Missile Program?

Saudi Arabia and its coalition allies routinely blame Iran for supporting Ansarullah’s ballistic missile program but the evidence simply doesn’t exist to prove this.

In fact, documents from the Yemeni Ministry of Defense show that both the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen) and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (South Yemen) purchased ballistic missiles from the Soviet Union and Korea during the Cold War in the 1980s and onward.

In fact, the late Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh was a close ally of former U.S. President George W. Bush during the early years of the “War on Terror.” During that time, Saleh received substantial military assistance — at least $400 million worth of weapons and equipment — from the United States. The Ansarullah movement and its allies took control of the weapon storage facilities during the 2014 revolution.

As for small arms, Yemen ranks in the top two for the number of weapons per capita — second only to the United States.

You might also like:

• Blame US Imperialism for al-Qaeda in Yemen – Not the “Houthi” Uprising

• Where Is Yemen and Why Is the US Helping Saudi Arabia Bomb It?

• Saudi Weapons of War: Bullets, Bombs, Mercenaries, Media, Blackmail

• American Spy Arrested by “Houthis” Worked Undercover Via NGO Agencies

• First-Hand Interview: Ansarullah Leader Explains How US and UN Sandbagged Yemen Peace Talks

Credit: Al-Masirah

Yemen’s Defense Program Goes Far Beyond Missiles

The small country’s defense capabilities stretch far beyond the Yemen missile program. For the past four years, Yemen’s military engineers have worked to develop advanced defense capabilities for the Army, Air Force, and Navy as well.

Under President Saleh’s rule, Yemen’s military development was extremely restricted to avoid becoming a genuine threat to the Saudi kingdom and US hegemony. However, this has changed under Ansarullah’s leadership.

In February 2017, Yemen unveiled four domestically manufactured drones: Qasef-1, Hudhud-1, Raqib, and Rased, all of which perform a variety of tasks such as aerial monitoring, battlefield observation, and geophysical surveying.

In January of 2019, Yemen’s Air Force revealed a stealth kamikaze drone, the K2. Yemen’s Air Force first used the new K2 drone to target a gathering of high-ranking Saudi military leaders and mercenaries on Thursday at the al-Anad military base in Yemen’s Lahj province.

Yemen has also drastically expanded its naval defense capability. In November of 2017, Yemen’s Naval and Coastal Defense unveiled a powerful line of missiles to defend the country’s Red Sea territory.