Houthi rebels say they have fired a new ‘homemade hypersonic missile’ and posted footage of its launch on a civilian ship

• Houthi rebels say they have fired a locally made hypersonic missile while attacking ships in the Red Sea.

• Dubbed the “Hatem-2,” the Houthis said the missile is a solid-fuel nuclear warhead fired at a Liberian-flagged ship.

• The Houthis are not known to have advanced weapons production, and the missile resembles Iranian designs.

Yemen’s Houthi rebel group said on Wednesday it had attacked a Liberian-flagged ship in the Arabian Sea with a “homemade hypersonic missile”, saying it had unveiled the weapon for the first time.

“It is a home-made hypersonic missile that has advanced technology, is accurate in hitting and can reach long ranges,” the Houthi military spokesman wrote. Yahya Sare’e in a post on X.

Sare’e said the missile was launched at the MSC Sarah V, a Greek-operated civilian ship that he said had ties to Israel. He did not say whether the ship was hit.

Tracking data shows the vessel was en route to Abu Dhabi and entered the Persian Gulf on Wednesday evening, indicating it is still functioning.

The Maritime trading operations in the United Kingdom, run by Britain’s Royal Navy, reported that a ship was attacked on Monday but the crew is safe after an explosion near the hull. A map showing the location of the attack indicates it is one of the longest attacks the Houthis have carried out to date.

Houthis posted images of the missile

Houthi-linked channels posted images of the alleged launch and dubbed the missile the ‘Hatem-2’ or ‘Hadim-2’.

The video text claims that it is a solid-fuel rocket with an intelligent control system and that multiple generations of the rocket exist with different effective ranges.

Business Insider could not immediately verify the authenticity of the images. In some clips, parts of the frame are blurred.

Sare’e said in a statement that the missile was developed by the Yemen Military Industrialization Corporation.

The Houthis are not known to be capable of manufacturing advanced weapons, raising the question of whether the “Hatem-2” was truly “homemade.”

However, the group has been found to be repeatedly receiving weapons from Iran, which is a violation of a A United Nations arms embargo.

Indeed, the missile shown in the Houthis’ video on Wednesday appears to resemble Iranian-made munitions such as the Fattah-1, which Tehran says can travel at an effective speed of up to Mach 13, or 13 times the speed of the sound.

Is the ‘Hatem-2’ really a homemade hypersonic missile?

Missiles that reach speeds of Mach 5 or faster are generally considered hypersonic, and their speeds can make them difficult for defense systems to intercept. The term is sometimes used loosely to describe hypersonic hover vehicles and cruise missiles – warheads that can maneuver unpredictably in the air at hypersonic speeds – which are at the forefront of the military development of major powers like the US and China.

Given the images published by the Houthis, it is unlikely that the ‘Hatem-2’ has such advanced capabilities.

The announcement by the Houthis comes just weeks after they said they had launched another advanced missile. called ‘Palestine’, on June 8. Like the “Hatem-2”, the rebels claimed that this missile was locally made, but that it also resembled Iranian nuclear warheads.

These launches took place about three months after Russian state media reported in March that the Houthis had launched a hypersonic missile that could reach speeds of up to Mach 8.

The rebel group has attacked dozens of ships, mainly in the Red Sea, in what it says is a response to Israel’s recent bombardment and occupation of Gaza. The Houthis claim to attack ships linked to Israel, but it is often unclear how the targeted ships are linked to Tel Aviv.

Naval assets stationed in the region that the US and its allies have done so far downed almost all missiles and drones fired from Yemen.

Notably, Yemen’s last launch took place as the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group left the region on Saturday after defending the area for about eight months. It will be replaced by the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group.

With the Roosevelt strike group – the third group stationed in the Middle East since October 2023 – upon departure from South Korea on Wednesday, the Red Sea region will have been without an American aircraft carrier for at least several days.

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