Report claims Yemen’s Houthis have a hypersonic missile

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Yemen’s Houthi terrorists claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their ongoing attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip.

The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unnamed official but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine.

However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the United States and its allies, which have so far been able to down any missile or bomb-carrying drone that comes near their warships in Mideast waters.

Meanwhile, Iran and the U.S. reportedly held indirect talks in Oman, the first in months amid their long-simmering tensions over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program and attacks by its proxies.

Iran, the Houthis’ main benefactor, claims to have a hypersonic missile and has widely armed the terrorists with the missiles they now use. Adding a hypersonic missile to their arsenal could pose a more formidable challenge to the air defense systems employed by America and its allies, including Israel. Iran has long vowed to destroy Israel

“The group’s missile forces have successfully tested a missile that is capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 8 and runs on solid fuel,” a military official close to the Houthis said, according to the RIA report. The Houthis “intend to begin manufacturing it for use during attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as well as against targets in Israel.”

Mach 8 is eight times the speed of sound.

Hypersonic weapons, which fly at speeds higher than Mach 5, could pose crucial challenges to missile defense systems because of their speed and maneuverability.

Ballistic missiles fly on a trajectory in which anti-missile systems like the U.S.-made Patriot can anticipate their path and intercept them. The more irregular the missile’s flight path, such as a hypersonic missile with the ability to change directions, the more difficult it becomes to intercept.

China is believed to be pursuing the weapons, as is America. Russia claims it has already used them.

In Yemen, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the Houthi terrorists’ secretive supreme leader, boasted about the terrorists’ weapons efforts at the end of February, saying: “We have surprises that the enemies do not expect at all.”

A week ago, he similarly warned: “What is coming is greater.”

“The enemy … will see the level of achievements of strategic importance that place our country in its capabilities among the limited and numbered countries in this world,” al-Houthi said, without elaborating.

The Houthis have attacked ships since November, saying they want to force Israel to end the war in Gaza. The ships attacked, however, have increasingly had little or no connection to Israel, the U.S. or other nations involved in the war.

A new suspected Houthi attack targeted a ship in the Gulf of Aden on Thursday, but missed the vessel and caused no damage, the British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said.