Your second sentence is part of the answer to your first one...

You'd need air launched ballistic missiles (which Israel used) to avoid detection by Saudi radars. The Houthis don't have those.

You'd need jets capable of operations over the Red Sea - which the Houthis don't have.

If they did have those things, they'd certainly use them to attack Israel or Riyadh, not Qatar.

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sudosysgen 3 hours ago | parent [-]

ALBMs are not any harder to detect than normal ballistic missiles. You don't need jets to go over the Red Sea either, Houthi cruise missiles can operate over the Red Sea and then change course to hit their targets.

	▲	mikeyouse 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If you know where they’re launching from, you can equally detect ALBMs or ground launched ones - but given that ALBMs have mobile launch ‘pads’ with thousand+ mile ranges, they’re actually much harder to detect. Hence why we’ve just started rolling out the next gen OPIR this year.. You don't need jets to go over the Red Sea either, Houthi cruise missiles can operate over the Red Sea and then change course to hit their targets. You do if you want ALBMs… the “A” is pretty important for that acronym. And cruise missiles are not ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles that tracked up the Red Sea and then crossed 1,200km of Saudi Arabia while heading for Qatar would obviously be detected (and likely shot down) by US and Saudi air defenses.