The Houthis are seeking to manufacture parts of advanced Iranian-designed medium-range ballistic missiles inside Yemen, according to new research that raises questions about how effectively Saudi Arabia can interrupt the group’s ability to sustain its attacks.
In a report published on 14 October and previewed by The Wall Street Journal, Conflict Armament Research (CAR) identified components associated with the Iranian-designed Kheibar Shekan missile family alongside industrial equipment and raw materials in shipments intended for Houthi-controlled territory.
Shipping documents identified a Chinese supplier, suggesting that the group is expanding its procurement beyond Iran-linked networks.
The findings come as Riyadh faces repeated attacks on airports and other critical infrastructure. The strikes have disrupted aviation and exposed the costs of protecting a vast country against an adversary whose arsenal and methods have developed through years of war.
For Saudi Arabia, the concern extends beyond the specifications of an individual missile. A growing ability to source components, manufacture selected parts and adapt how different weapons are used could make the Houthi strike campaign more difficult to contain.
Beyond imported missile kits
The October report concerns four containers documented by Yemeni authorities in July 2026. They had arrived in Aden’s free zone aboard two vessels in June and October 2025, carrying shipments from China whose intended destination was the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah.
The cargo included machined components associated with the airframe and rocket motor of the Kheibar Shekan series, one of Iran’s most advanced and longest-range ballistic missiles, together with materials and machinery potentially useful for manufacturing and testing.
Their presence points towards an effort to produce parts locally, beyond reassembling weapons delivered in separate packages.
“Inspection of the cargo revealed Houthi ambitions to at least partially manufacture medium-range ballistic missiles inside Yemen,” Fabian Hinz, a senior analyst at CAR, told The New Arab. “Whether that effort has succeeded, remains a work in progress or has met major obstacles remains difficult to determine.”
Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), outlined a more limited scenario. “Final local assembly with domestic manufacturing of some components I think is most likely,” he told The New Arab.
The systems involved nevertheless represent a substantial ambition. Iran unveiled the original solid-propellant Kheibar Shekan in 2022, with a reported range of 1,450 kilometres. The missile was first used against targets in Syria in January 2024, and later against Israel and US bases in the MENA region.
CAR identifies several related variants in Houthi service, giving the group access to designs intended for long-range strikes and equipped with manoeuvring features that could complicate interception.
Earlier seizures show that the supply chain encompasses both weapons and the means to assemble or produce them. A shipment intercepted in Aden in August 2025, for example, included drone and propulsion-related equipment and advanced control components, according to US Central Command.
A separate CAR briefing, published in September, described missile kits bearing assembly labels that used Iranian rather than Houthi designations, suggesting they were produced in Iran. Broadening the supplier base would loosen that dependence.
“Sourcing components and raw materials from suppliers beyond Iran-linked networks can reduce dependence and potentially eliminate bottlenecks,” Hinz said. He cautioned that independence depends on the weapons involved: small drones built largely from commercial components are easier to manufacture than systems requiring specialised parts.
“For the more advanced weapons, the Houthis will likely continue to rely on the import of key subsystems, but further developing a domestic capability could increasingly allow for the manufacture of less sophisticated guided weapons. This would reduce dependency on external actors,” Barrie added.
Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, sees the Chinese supply chain as a substitute for “the Iranian one, which has been severely hampered by the US naval blockade”.
The cargo documented by CAR arrived in 2025, before the current blockade, so such channels were already in use; they are likely to matter more now that Iranian routes are under pressure. Replacement has limits, however. “Houthis still depend on Iran for critical missile subsystems and guidance components,” Nadimi told The New Arab. “The Houthis cannot get those from China.”
Chinese suppliers, in other words, can provide raw materials and machined parts, but not the most sensitive components. Nor is the technology itself new. Kheibar Shekan and Fattah technology, Nadimi said, “has been transferred to Houthis for quite some time now”, though he could not say whether the group has incorporated “the latest upgrade kits”.
Iran unveiled the Fattah, which it describes as hypersonic, in 2023. The new evidence therefore concerns ambitions to manufacture parts locally, rather than the first acquisition of those technologies.
The concern predates CAR’s latest findings. On 11 September 2025, the US Treasury sanctioned Hubei Chica Industrial Co., Ltd., accusing the China-based supplier of coordinating with Houthi procurement operatives to provide chemical precursors used to manufacture ballistic missiles, explosives and other weapons inside Yemen.
The US Treasury also accused China-based Shenzhen Shengnan Trading of shipping dual-use electronics to Houthi front companies.
CAR’s evidence requires qualification. Shipping documents identified a Chinese precision-metal producer advertising custom aerospace components, but investigators have not traced the items with the manufacturer or independently verified the documentation. The findings do not establish Chinese government involvement, production volumes or a link to specific attacks on Saudi Arabia.
For Riyadh, this widens the interdiction challenge to commercial suppliers and intermediaries beyond Iran. It also gives the kingdom an incentive to seek Beijing’s cooperation on export controls and end-use checks.
An evolving strike campaign
The industrial investigation coincides with indications that the Houthis are refining how they employ their weapons. According to the Gulf Research Center, as of 15 October, the Houthis have staged at least 42 attacks on Saudi territory, including nine targeting Riyadh and five targeting energy infrastructure in the Eastern Province. At least one third of these raids involved ballistic missiles.
The Associated Press reported on 12 October that regional officials described drones preceding cruise and ballistic missiles in an attack on Riyadh airport. The sequence suggests an effort to combine weapons with different flight characteristics, although it remains unclear whether the drones acted as decoys.
“Houthis and Iranians have both tested hybrid tactics, and I am sure they compare notes too,” Nadimi told The New Arab.
Iran’s April 2024 attack on Israel combined drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, while its October 2024 attack relied exclusively on ballistic missiles. The strike on Riyadh airport followed the first pattern.
Mixed attacks require defenders to track threats across different altitudes and speeds, while repeated strikes keep personnel and equipment under pressure. Barrie cautioned that Kheibar Shekan-family missiles must be accounted for even if their actual performance falls short of advertised capabilities, “further complicating the challenges facing a defender”.
CAR’s September briefing identified another operational development: a reconnaissance drone helped cue a close-range ballistic missile against a time-sensitive target. This points to improvements in battlefield targeting, alongside the group’s expanding long-range strike capabilities.
Against Saudi Arabia, repeated attacks on airports and energy infrastructure aim to raise the costs of Riyadh’s intervention in Yemen, pressing the kingdom to scale back support for anti-Houthi forces and ease restrictions on Houthi-controlled ports and airports. The goal is bargaining power, without having to defeat Saudi forces directly.
Inside Yemen, the 15 October attack on Aden, which hit the presidential palace, exposed the internationally recognised government’s vulnerability at its own seat of power, while strikes on Marib appear intended to disrupt preparations for counteroffensives.
In the Red Sea, the threat to shipping gives the Houthis leverage over Riyadh and outside powers weighing intervention, on a trade route made more important by insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz. Their declared blockade of Saudi Arabia ties this maritime pressure to the campaign against the kingdom’s airports.
Together, these operations seek to protect Houthi territorial gains while raising the costs of attempts to reverse them. Greater military reach does not guarantee political concessions, however: attacks causing civilian casualties could instead harden Saudi resolve and draw greater external assistance.
Riyadh's containment dilemma
“They are already changing the battlefield around KSA,” Nadimi told The New Arab. For Saudi Arabia, the challenge is both immediate and cumulative: preventing the next strike while reducing the Houthis’ ability to keep launching them.
ACLED reported on 12 October that Houthi strikes and attempted strikes on Saudi territory had more than doubled over the preceding week. An airport need not be destroyed for airlines to suspend services.
Interception also consumes finite resources. Regional officials have reported pressure on Saudi interceptor stocks during the wider Iran war, making replenishment and outside assistance central to sustaining the defensive effort.
Offensive operations face a different problem: airstrikes can destroy launchers, depots and workshops, but suppressing the campaign means repeatedly locating assets that may be mobile, concealed or dispersed. Nor have Houthi air defences closed Yemeni airspace: CTP-ISW assessed on 15 October that the group’s occasional successful engagements had not significantly disrupted the Saudi air campaign.
Wider procurement networks and partial local manufacturing could make replenishment harder to interrupt, even without making the Houthis self-sufficient, while imported subsystems remain a point of vulnerability.
Riyadh’s challenge is to reduce both the group’s ability to rebuild its arsenal and the political leverage it derives from using it.
Francesco Salesio Schiavi is an Italian specialist in the Middle East. His focus lies in the security architecture of the Levant and the Gulf, with a particular emphasis on Iraq, Iran, and the Arab Peninsula, as well as military and diplomatic interventions by international actors
Follow him on X: @frencio_schiavi
Edited by Charlie Hoyle
Login
