I’ve got two Yemeni sources for this story.
Both find stories about C.101s, C.701s, and C.802s, but especially about ‘Iranian aid’ rather ‘silly’.
I’ve got two Yemeni sources for this story. While I can’t go into details about them in the public, I can say that one of them survived that ‘funeral procession massacre’ on 8 October (when more than 50 top officials — including one minister — were killed, though no women or children), and belongs to a tribe much courted by Maj Gen Ali Ahmar (Hadi’s MOD and de-facto in charge of the Islah Party).
Both find stories about C.101s, C.701s, and C.802s, but especially about ‘Iranian aid’ rather ‘silly’.
Furthemore, and in regards of ‘Iranians’ and ‘C.701’ you’ve mentioned in your response:
Except for hundreds, perhaps thousands of ‘confident’ claims (especially from Saudi and US officials) there is no firm evidence for provision of any kind of serious military assistance by Iran for the Houthis/Saleh coalition. There is even less of evidence for deliveries of such weapons like often cited C.802s, Zelzals, and Misagh-1 MANPADs (or C.701s). The only evidence that became available so far includes a consignment of RPG-7s obviously made in Iran, captured in spring of this year (see photo here — https://i.sli.mg/kPOklh.jpg — the RPG-7s in question are easily recognized as ‘made in Iran’ by their unique colour), and one video showing a ‘Hezbollah advisor’ talking with a group of Houthi combatants — reportedly captured by Saudi SF during a raid on a training camp in Sa’ada Governorate, in February this year (see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NmLhAzRj8o). Considering severity of usual accusations in this regards, but also massive availability of all sorts of evidence for Iranian arms shipments and troop deployments to Syria — just not to Yemen — one is left to wonder how comes…
The C.701 you cited is a sort of ‘mystic’ weapon, about which there are plenty of rumours but little certainty and for which — despite reports about its service entry in China under the designation YJ-9 (and a photo of one installed on a ZD-9 helicopter) — some say was actually developed for export purposes only (Chinese are manufacturing a number of weapons system ‘for export purposes only’, i.e. which they never introduce into service at home). A batch of about 100 was delivered to Iran in the 1990s but, curiously, Iranians were never particularly happy about them — and, following extensive testing, opted for the C.802K-2 (aka ‘No’or’) instead.
It’s not only the C.701 that is using active radar homing: the same is the case with the C.801 and C.802.
But foremost, and as mentioned in that and in my earlier report about Yemen, it’s so that most of the Yemeni military sided (or ‘defected’, if you prefer) to the Houthi side. The people firing C.801s are officers and NCOs of the Yemeni Navy, military professionals trained in China (and elsewhere), no ‘Houthi rebels’ (i.e. Ansar Allah). So, I’m sorry, but I do not see how would this with active radar homing ‘greatly enable a successful attack considering the lack of military training of Houthi rebels’?
Finally: sources in question admit that (contrary to officially released reports) most of their attacks resulted in failures, i.e. missiles crashed into the sea before reaching their target. They seem to have understood the reason for this (or at least: they’re working on correcting it). I’ll not go into specifics, but precisely their description of the reason in question is — also (in addition to them citing C.801s) — clearly pointing in direction of them using C.801s, which, sure, are much more complex to use (especially under given circumstances) than certain other of Chinese-made weapons.
Bottom line, if you like, feel free to call me ‘naive’, ‘over-dependent on sources’ or whatever else. But, I see my job in reporting what sources say, and not in correcting them.