Anthropic report points to Iran-backed Houthis using Claude to develop missiles

According to Anthropic's findings in the report, the Iran-aligned Houthis used Claude Code to try and develop software for several weapons programmes, including a guided rocket, a ballistic missile and a missile family with a hypersonic glide vehicle variant.Members of the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces clash with Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis. (Reuters)Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen may have used Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot, to develop software for guided missiles, a threat intelligence report published by the tech company indicates.The 154-page report, published on Thursday, details how governments, criminal groups and others misused Anthropic's powerful AI models in an attempt to develop biological weapons, conduct espionage, disseminate propaganda, and other malicious activities.One startling revelation was how a Yemen-based group used Claude Code to work on guidance, navigation and control software for a guided rocket and other missile programmes. While Anthropic did not name the group involved, details in the report point to the Houthis, who have built a sizeable arsenal of missiles and drones.Anthropic said these "threat actors" were also developing a ballistic missile with a stated range of more than 2,000 km and a missile variant featuring a hypersonic glide vehicle. The company said it did not have evidence that the actors successfully deployed an operational guided weapon, though they did test-fire a guided rocket that apparently failed. AI USED AS ENGINEERING TEAMAccording to Anthropic, a weapons engineering cell was based in northern Yemen and working on three missile programmes. One involved a guided rocket using a commercially available, phone-class flight computer and final-phase homing guidance.Another was a multistage ballistic missile with a stated range of more than 2,000 kilometres. The third, described as the “R2000” set, included several missile variants, including a hypersonic glide vehicle. The militants used Claude Code to develop guidance, navigation and control software, or GNC, which helps steer and stabilise a flying vehicle.Anthropic said Claude was used to integrate an open-source autopilot with a phone-class flight computer. The AI helped write control and position-estimation software, tune control settings, run firmware builds and conduct flight simulations.The operators also ran several Claude instances simultaneously, assigning different tasks to each. One instance was used to write code, another to conduct research and a third to review the first one's work.Anthropic said its safeguards blocked many requests but couldn't stop all of them. "The actors used a variety of tactics to evade our safeguards, including hiding their goals and the products the software was meant for, and they split their work across multiple sessions, so no single session revealed their full intent," it said.Within hours of the group's guided missile test-fire ending in failure, they returned to Claude to troubleshoot.Anthropic said it identified the activity during an internal investigation, banned accounts linked to the actors and shared information with public- and private-sector partners.WIDER MISUSEThe Yemeni case was one of six examples in which Anthropic identified attempts to use Claude for conventional weapons development. The other cases involved actors in China and Russia and included work on firearms, missiles, armed drones, bombs and other munitions.The report also highlighted the use of Claude in cyber operations, surveillance and propaganda. Anthropic cited Russian espionage and "smash-and-grab" cyberattacks, as well as China-linked surveillance programmes targeting Uyghurs in Syria and domestic dissidents.It also documented propaganda-related activity involving Russia, Malaysia, Iran and Bangladesh.- EndsPublished By: Devika BhattacharyaPublished On: Sep 11, 2026 10:03 IST