US Forces Say Houthi Attacks Threaten World Amid Hypersonic Missile Reports

The U.S. military has warned that the growing threat posed by maritime attacks being launched on a near-daily basis by well-armed rebels in Yemen extends far beyond the Middle East at a time when the group is looking to expand the scope and sophistication of its campaign.

For five months, Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthi movement, has targeted international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, seizing one cargo ship and firing missiles and drones against dozens more with the aim of pressuring countries to bring an end to Israel's ongoing war against the Palestinian Hamas movement in Gaza. Despite U.S.-led efforts to deter such operations, the group's leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, announced Thursday that attacks would be expanded into the Indian Ocean.

In response to this warning, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command told Newsweek that "the Houthis continue to threaten all vessels that transit the Red Sea, so this is an ongoing concern for all nations that engage in maritime commerce in the region."

But on the same day that the Houthi movement committed to broadening the scope of Ansar Allah's maritime campaign, reports emerged of another alleged breakthrough for the group. Russia's state-run Sputnik News Agency cited an unnamed military source saying Ansar Allah had successfully tested a hypersonic weapon for the first time.

"Missile forces of the movement have successfully tested a missile that can reach speeds of up to Mach 8 [10,000 kilometers per hour or 6,200 mph] and is powered by solid fuel," Sputnik cited the source as saying. "Yemen plans to begin manufacturing it for use in attacks in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Gulf of Aden, as well as against targets in Israel."

The CENTCOM spokesperson declined comment on the Pentagon's assessment as to whether or not Ansar Allah had, in fact, acquired such a capability, saying, "our posture on Houthi capabilities remains an intelligence matter and, for reasons of Opsec [operational security], we will not disclose knowledge of proposed Houthi weapon capabilities."

Skepticism persists over the claim. In remarks referred to Newsweek by the CENTCOM spokesperson, Deputy Defense Secretary Sabrina Singh branded the report of Ansar Allah's hypersonic breakthrough "inaccurate" and said that "we have no indication that they even have that capability" during a press briefing Thursday.

White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Director John Kirby offered a similar response during a separate press conference that same day.

"Those reports are inaccurate," Kirby said. "There's absolutely no indication that the Houthis have access to a hypersonic weapon. So, I can walk you off of that."

Newsweek has reached out to Ansar Allah for comment.

Hypersonic weapons are still considered an emergent technology on the battlefield. Such weapons are capable of traveling at speeds of at least Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, and, unlike traditional ballistic missiles that may also reach such speeds, hypersonic platforms are highly maneuverable, even at low altitudes, making them difficult to intercept for even the most modern defense systems.

Thus far, the only countries that are known to possess such weapons in their arsenal are China and Russia, with the latter already putting them to combat use amid its ongoing war in Ukraine. North Korea has also claimed a series of successful tests toward developing hypersonic missiles and other countries, such as India and Iran, are also investing in the capability.

The U.S., for its part, has struggled in its own long-standing efforts to achieve field hypersonic capabilities, with a history of failed tests and aborted programs.

Just one day before the report of Ansar Allah's alleged test emerged, U.S. Air Force Assistant Secretary Major General Mike Greiner acknowledged during a press briefing that there was no additional funding for the hypersonic AGM-183 Air-Launch Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) in the fiscal year 2025 budget.

At the same time, he said "hypersonics are an important piece of the portfolio," and that funding for the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile (HACM) would go on, albeit at a slight decrease from the amount allotted to the project in the previous budget.

Meanwhile, U.S. Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo told reporters last Monday that joint a Army-Navy initiative to develop the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), nicknamed Dark Eagle, was moving forward despite recent setbacks, with "guardedly optimistic" hopes of conducting a test launch this summer.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced an award of $11.7 million via the Defense Production Act Investment Program to Ensign-Bickford Aerospace & Defense for additional circuit board assembly that Assistant Defense Secretary for Industrial Base Policy Laura Taylor-Kale said would serve as "a key component of the DoD's [Department of Defense's] strategy to accelerate the development and fielding of hypersonic systems and deliver cutting-edge capabilities to our armed forces."

For the U.S., however, deterring Ansar Allah's ongoing campaign of attacks targeting merchant vessels using conventional missiles and drones has already proven challenging.

In Singh's recent remarks shared with Newsweek by CENTCOM, the Pentagon deputy press secretary affirmed that the U.S. would continue to conduct joint strikes alongside the U.K. against Ansar Allah military sites in Yemen and shore up maritime security as part of the Operation Prosperity Guardian coalition established in December.

"We are going to continue to conduct these dynamic strikes. We feel confident that we continue to degrade the Houthis' capabilities," Singh said at the time. "But we know that they have—they still continue to get access and are provided weapons and capabilities and support by Iran. That support continues. We haven't seen that lag in any way."

"And we know that they have these sophisticated weapons and systems," she added. "But we're going to continue to support what we're doing through Operation Prosperity Guardian to make sure that commercial ships can continue to transit that very important waterway, which is the Red Sea, and we're also going to defend our interests while doing so."

Iranian officials have vehemently denied such allegations. In a letter addressed to the United Nations Security Council on Monday and shared with Newsweek, Iranian Permanent Representative to the U.N. Amir Saeid Iravani dismissed what he called "baseless allegations" being used "as a pretext utilized by the United States and the United Kingdom to advance their short-sighted political agenda as well as to justify and validate their ongoing unlawful actions and military aggression against Yemen."

With reports of new attacks regularly flooding in from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, Ansar Allah has vowed to press on until Israel halted its campaign in Gaza.

"The Yemeni Armed Forces persist with their military operations," Ansar Allah military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement Friday, "enforcing a blockade on Israeli navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas as well as the Indian Ocean, until a ceasefire is achieved and the siege on Gaza is lifted."