September 19, 2024: Currently the Yemen Houthi rebels are trying to halt merchant ship traffic to the Suez Canal as well as launch armed drone attacks on Israel. Neither of these violent activities are having much impact. Israeli air defense systems intercept nearly all incoming missiles. Merchant shipping in the Red Sea continues to move along the Yemen coast towards the Suez Canal. The mass media, looking for, or inventing scary stories to attract more readers, publish distorted versions of how effective the Houthi attacks are. The attacks are frequent and they usually fail. Those that hit a ship generally do only minor damage and that is not sufficient to stop ships from using the Red Sea to reach the Suez Canal.

The Houthis have a long history as inept users of modern weapons. This was demonstrated after 2015 as Iran smuggled in 430 ballistic missiles and 851 explosives equipped drones for attacks on neighboring Saudi Arabia. The Houthi were sent a lot more missiles, but anti-smuggling patrols by the U.S. Navy and a few warships from European or Gulf Arab nations, managed to seize many of the missiles. The embargo was so tight at times that the Iranians were forced to land the missiles in Oman, one of the few Persian Gulf Arab countries that maintained cordial relations with Iran where local truck drivers got them to the Yemen border with Saudi Arabia. This was more time consuming and expensive than using ships, but the Iranians had to improvise when the naval blockade was too troublesome.

The longer range Iranian ballistic missiles were used in attempts to hit Saudi oil facilities on the Persian Gulf coast. The Saudi had received the Patriot missile defense system and purchased hundreds of Patriot missiles to shoot down most of the Houthi missiles. Since 2015 the Saudi Patriot system crews have gained more combat experience than anyone else. The Ukrainian may eventually catch up as they receive more Patriot missiles. Since late 2023 the Houthis have been firing their cruise missiles at ships in the Red Sea. The wartime activity has brought many warships and air patrols to the Red Sea and that has halted Iranian missile smuggling efforts.

The problem Iran and the Houthis face is that as of 2023, Middle Eastern countries friendly to the United States have been supplied with a lot of Patriot batteries. Kuwait has about 8 batteries; Qatar has 6, Saudi Arabia has 25 batteries and hundreds of additional missiles to keep active batteries supplied with enough missiles to deal with large scale attacks, like the one that the Houthis created on the Yemen-Saudi border. The UAE has 9 Patriot batteries while Israel has 4 Patriot PAC-2 batteries as well as two locally designed David’s Sling batteries. This Israeli system is an improvement on Patriot, developed and built with cooperation from the United States.

Another technology the Houthis were not interested in were the novel Ukrainian USV (Unmanned Seagoing Vessels) or naval drones that were developed to effectively attack and sink or scare away most of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Iran is trying to figure out how to build such sea drones.