Direct proof of use
Sayyad is documented in the 2023 Red Sea Crisis at campaign level. In its December 2024 assessment of the Houthi Red Sea and Gulf of Aden campaign, IISS listed Sayyad and Quds-Z-0 as Paveh/Quds-based anti-ship cruise missiles known to have been used by Houthi forces during the anti-shipping campaign.
The same IISS report assessed that a Paveh-type missile likely failed during the late-April 2024 attack sequence connected to MSC Orion, after missile wreckage appeared in northern Somalia. That evidence supports Paveh-family use in the campaign but does not identify whether the missile was Sayyad or Quds-Z-0.
Sources: IISS Navigating Troubled Waters
Timeline
Sayyad was visible in Houthi missile-display material shortly before the maritime campaign expanded. The War Zone, summarizing IISS analysis in January 2024, described Sayyad and Quds-Z-0 as Quds-series derivatives with apparent anti-ship capability, and quoted IISS's distinction between Sayyad's radar-homing seeker and Quds-Z-0's electro-optical or infrared seeker.
By April 2024, open-source assessments of Houthi anti-ship cruise missile use remained cautious. Combating Terrorism Center analysis identified Al-Mandab-2 as the anti-ship cruise missile known to have been used at that point in the post-October 2023 campaign, while noting that newer Quds-series anti-shipping variants included Sayyad and Quds-Z-0. IISS later broadened the campaign-use assessment to include both Paveh/Quds-based variants.
Sources: TWZ Houthi Anti-Ship Arsenal, IISS Houthi Anti-Ship Systems, CTC Houthi War Effort, IISS Navigating Troubled Waters
Operational role
The supported conflict role is Houthi long-range maritime strike, interdiction, and area denial against shipping lanes around the southern Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, Gulf of Aden, and wider approaches. Public sources treat Sayyad as the radar-seeker member of the anti-ship Paveh/Quds pair, with Quds-Z-0 serving as the EO/IR-seeker counterpart.
The public record should not be read as a vessel-by-vessel firing log. IISS places Sayyad in the set of Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles used during the campaign, but its MSC Orion discussion attributes the recovered wreckage only to a Paveh-type missile and states that the available evidence did not determine whether the specific variant was Sayyad or Quds-Z-0.
That evidence supports a fielded and used Houthi anti-shipping role for Sayyad in the Red Sea Crisis, while leaving individual strike attribution unresolved unless later official reporting, imagery, or recovered components identify the missile variant more narrowly.
Sources: IISS Houthi Anti-Ship Systems, IISS Navigating Troubled Waters, CTC Houthi War Effort
