...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is
God is Great, Death to Americaâ„¢, Death to Israel, a curse on the JewsThey like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him...
rebels in Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
and was targeting Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used their Arrow anti-ballistic missile defense system, which is a joint American-Israeli project first deployed in Israel over 20 years ago.
While the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has released few details about the interception, the Air Force is known to operate several batteries of the Arrow 2 system, which uses a hypersonic interceptor to take out incoming missiles in space.
The Israeli defence ministry released a video showing the moment of interception, with the faint cylindrical shape of the incoming ballistic missile barely visible in the false-colour image, before a kaboom smears across the screen.
In a statement, the IDF said that air force systems tracked the missile’s trajectory and intercepted it "at the most appropriate operational time and location".
The missile, which was classified as a Qadr-110 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), is an improved version of the Iranian-designed Shahab-3 ballistic missile. It is approximately 52 feet long and four feet wide, weighs just over 37,400 pounds, and has a range of just over 1,200 miles. The missile has the ability to carry a conventional or nuclear warhead and can carry a warhead of up to 2,200 pounds.
The Arrow anti-ballistic missile system was designed specifically to deal with these types of threats and is also capable of intercepting land or sea-based cruise missiles as well. The IDF used this system before in 2017 when it successfully intercepted a Syrian S-200 surface-to-air missile, which was fired at an Israeli aircraft but missed and veered off-course in the direction of Israel. The missile is approximately 6,200 pounds, 23 feet long, and has a two-stage body. It has a top speed of MACH 9, which means it is capable of high hypersonic speeds and carries a 330-pound high-explosive warhead.