Yemen’s Houthi movement has demonstrated its growing ability to strike targets deep inside Saudi Arabia, attacking Riyadh’s international airport and hitting the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, in air assaults that have exposed vulnerabilities in the kingdom’s defences. The attacks have also threatened Saudi Arabia’s efforts to attract foreign investment and establish itself as an international business hub while diversifying its economy away from oil.
According to Reuters, weapons specialists and regional security experts attribute the Houthis’ growing effectiveness to a combination of Iranian technical assistance, increasingly self-sufficient weapons production and pressure on regional air-defence systems following the war involving the United States, Israel and Iran. The movement, which controls north-western Yemen, has developed capabilities that allow it to operate with greater independence from direct Iranian weapons supplies, complicating efforts to contain its military threat.
Iran has provided weapons, money and training to the Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, for more than a decade, although Tehran has officially denied supplying arms in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. Experts say the relationship has evolved beyond the transfer of finished weapons towards building the Houthis’ ability to assemble and operate their own missiles and drones.
Andreas Krieg, a senior security studies lecturer at King’s College London, said members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Lebanon’s Hezbollah initially helped the Houthis acquire knowledge of missile systems and their operation. Former Yemeni military engineers and a growing generation of locally trained specialists subsequently helped embed those capabilities within the movement.
“Tehran has not simply supplied the Houthis with weapons. It has helped create an indigenous military-industrial learning process that becomes progressively harder to dismantle, even if direct Iranian supply routes are disrupted,” Krieg said.
That development has reduced the Houthis’ dependence on complete weapons systems imported from Iran. Hamid Nikou, a former political adviser to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said Iranian planners had anticipated the possibility that direct deliveries could be interrupted or equipment seized by US-allied forces.
“The Revolutionary Guards were forward-looking. They looked at what happened if the Houthis couldn’t receive equipment or weapons directly (from Iran), or if these were seized by U.S.-allied forces,” Nikou said.
The strategy included teaching the Houthis how to assemble dual-use components into weapons, including drones and ballistic missiles. “Iran has basically taught the Houthis how to fish,” he said.
The resulting supply network appears to extend beyond Iran. Conflict Armament Research, an organisation that investigates weapons supplies in conflict zones, said in a report this week that the Houthis were attempting to manufacture advanced medium-range ballistic missiles using components shipped from China. The finding followed the seizure of one such shipment by Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
“China has emerged as a particularly important commercial source, while Iran continues to provide specialized military technology, technical expertise and components that are difficult to obtain commercially,” Krieg said.
The diversification of supply routes could make it more difficult for opponents to restrict the movement’s access to essential materials. Even if direct Iranian shipments are disrupted, commercially available components and locally developed technical expertise can help sustain weapons production.
The Houthis have also experimented with artificial intelligence to improve their military capabilities. Anthropic said last month that “a cell of threat actors based in northern Yemen” had used its Claude AI assistant to help develop software for a guided rocket, a planned ballistic missile with a range exceeding 2,000 kilometres and a missile variant incorporating a hypersonic glide vehicle. The disclosure indicates that the movement has explored the use of AI tools in weapons development, although it does not establish that the systems described have been completed or deployed successfully.
Saudi Arabia’s difficulties are compounded by the pressure on regional air defences since the war began when the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February. Washington has expended substantial quantities of missile interceptors protecting its bases and regional partners, including Israel and Gulf states. The resulting strain has left some countries more vulnerable to incoming attacks, with Saudi Arabia facing particular challenges.
Farzan Sabet, a Middle East expert at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said Saudi Arabia’s air-defence capabilities remained less sophisticated than those of Israel or Ukraine. “Saudi Arabia, in terms of the sophistication of the military and the development of an integrated air defense network, is not really yet at the level of either Israel or Ukraine, and it just has a very tough job to do,” he said.
The kingdom’s geographical size creates an additional problem, Sabet added, because defending its extensive territory against aerial attacks is more difficult than protecting Israel or an individual US military base. The effectiveness of an air-defence network depends not only on the quality of its equipment but also on its ability to detect, track and intercept threats across a wide area.
The Saudi-led military coalition fighting the Houthis in Yemen says it has intercepted a number of missiles directed at Saudi cities and destroyed 127 Houthi weapons-storage facilities and launch platforms. Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said the movement had acquired advanced military technology with assistance from “regional actors”, including ballistic missiles, drones and fast boats carrying explosives.
The Houthis’ development has also been shaped by years of fighting and expanding regional involvement. Yemen’s civil war, in which the movement battled Saudi-backed forces from 2014, settled into a fragile ceasefire in 2022. Following Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2023, which came after deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel, the Houthis began launching rockets at Israel and targeting shipping in the Red Sea.
That experience provided further opportunities to develop and test weapons and operational methods. The fallout from the US-Iran war subsequently reignited the Yemeni conflict as the Houthis entered the renewed fighting with capabilities that had evolved during years of regional confrontation.
“They haven’t been sitting still,” Sabet said. “They were basically diversifying their supply chains … and as they gain operational experience, they’re able to make those weapons more sophisticated.”
The attacks on Saudi Arabia have brought those developments into sharper focus, combining a more resilient weapons-production network with air-defence systems facing competing demands across the region. For Riyadh, the immediate challenge is compounded by the need to protect critical infrastructure, including international transport facilities and the oil industry, while maintaining confidence in the kingdom’s security as it seeks foreign investment.
