DUBAI, May 29. /TASS/. The Mohit missile used by the Houthis from Yemen's rebellious Ansar Allah movement to attack ships in the Red Sea is an exact replica of Iran's Ghadr ballistic missile, the Tasnim news agency has said.
Iran's Ghadr is the first anti-ship ballistic missile of the Iranian Armed Forces. The report notes that during a military parade the Houthis demonstrated a modification of the Mohit missile equipped with an optical homing system, just like the Ghadr. This missile is capable of seriously harming the interests of the US and its main ally in the region, Israel, Tasnim says.
On April 7, Iran's ISNA agency published a list of nine missiles capable of reaching targets in Israel. The list included the Ghadr ballistic missile. According to the technical specifications cited by the agency, the missiles’ range varies from 1,400 kilometers to 2,500 kilometers and their speed from Mach 5 to Mach 14 (from 6,120 km/h to 17,136 km/h).
In February, Iran's ambassador to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani told NBC in an interview that the Iranian authorities were not supplying weapons to Yemen's rebel movement Ansar Allah.
Following the escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip, Yemen's rebel movement Ansar Allah (Houthis) warned that it would bombard Israeli territory and not allow ships affiliated with it to pass through the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait as long as the operation in the Palestinian enclave continued. Since last November, the Houthis have attacked dozens of civilian ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. In March, the movement's leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, said his supporters intended to attack Israeli-linked ships on the way across the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope. On May 3, the Houthis announced that they would attack ships bound for Israeli ports wherever they could reach them, including the Mediterranean Sea.