Direct proof of use
The best direct evidence for Al-Mandab-2 in the 2014 Yemen Civil War runs through the Houthi C-802-family anti-ship cruise missile record. CSIS reports that Houthi forces employed C-801/C-802 missiles against military and civilian vessels near Yemen's coastline, including the 2016 USS Mason incidents, and CTC analysis says the Houthis had been building an anti-ship cruise missile arsenal from 2015 through Iranian Nour and Ghadar missiles, C-802 variants the Houthis call Al-Mandab-2.
The evidence is strongest at the family-identification level for earlier Yemen-war incidents. CSIS caveats the visual distinction between C-801 and C-802 in Houthi Al-Mandab imagery, while later CTC analysis states that the only anti-ship cruise missile known to have been used by the Houthis is Al-Mandab-2 (C-802).
Sources: The Missile War in Yemen, CTC Houthi War Effort
Timeline
From 2015, the Houthis gained coastal missile positions and access to older Yemeni anti-ship missile stocks as the civil war widened. CSIS reports that C-801 missiles fell into Houthi hands in 2015, while CTC describes Houthi coastal defense and sea-denial activity as built around land-based anti-shipping missiles after the group took control of Red Sea coastal missile batteries.
In October 2016, Houthi anti-ship missile attacks near Bab el-Mandeb brought the family into operational use. CSIS identifies C-801/C-802 missiles in attacks on vessels near Yemen's coast, including the USS Mason incidents, and CTC describes a C-802-family weapon as crippling a UAE high-speed transport vessel that month. In September 2022, UN reporting recorded Al-Mandab-2 among Houthi-displayed anti-ship missiles, giving the later Houthi designation a public parade record inside the same unresolved Yemen conflict.
Sources: The Missile War in Yemen, CTC Houthi War Effort, UN Panel of Experts on Yemen 2023 Final Report
Narrative
Al-Mandab-2 was part of the Houthi-aligned maritime strike and area-denial posture along the Red Sea coast, not a land-front weapon. The operational role was to threaten coalition warships, logistics vessels, and commercial shipping near the Bab el-Mandeb approaches and Yemen's western coastline.
IISS describes the Houthi anti-ship cruise missile inventory after the 2014-15 takeover as a mix of inherited Soviet and Chinese missiles followed by Iranian anti-ship cruise missiles that were deployed on a limited scale against the Saudi-led coalition. It assesses that the Houthis' primary anti-ship cruise missiles became Iranian-made C-802 derivatives and that the system publicly paraded as Al-Mandab-2 closely resembled the Iranian Ghader.
The public record does not support treating every Houthi anti-ship missile event in the Yemen war as a confirmed Al-Mandab-2 launch. A conservative reading is that Houthi-aligned forces used C-802-family anti-ship cruise missiles in the Yemen war, that Al-Mandab-2 is a Houthi label for that C-802-derived family, and that specific incident attribution often remains split among C-801, C-802, Noor, Ghader, and related designations.
Sources: IISS Navigating Troubled Waters, CTC Houthi War Effort, The Missile War in Yemen
