By Max Fisher, Eric Schmitt, et al., The New York Times: ““Our system knocked the missile out of the air,” President Trump said the next day from Air Force One en route to Japan, one of the 14 countries that use the system. “That's how good we are. Nobody makes what we make, and now we're selling it all over the world.” But an analysis of photos and videos of the strike posted to social media suggests that story may be wrong.”
At the strategic level, if Iran’s provision of ballistic missiles to the Houthi rebels is confirmed, it could be seen as an indicator Tehran’s increased tolerance for risk in a distant conflict theater, one which has sought to weaken Saudi Arabia by any means possible.
This is important for a few reasons. To start it puts the lie to the mantra of the Islamic State, al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorists that they are protecting the faith from the West. These groups are responsible for turning their battlefields into abattoirs. They slaughter the group they claim to protect.
But it's also a reminder of the short sightedness of President Donald Trump, who has at times tried to frame the war on terror as a contest between Islam and the West. It's true that fiends like the Islamic State have targeted religious minorities in the Middle East like Christians and Yazidis, but this has not stopped them from killing so many of their own religion too. The West's quarrel is with the extremists of political Islam, or the sect of the faith that seeks to impose Islamic law on others -- not the entire religion. Indeed, our military relies on local Muslims fighting alongside it in the war on terror. It's a strategy Trump himself has pursued in Syria and Iraq.
Many of the regimes in the Islamic world have internalized this lesson. Today Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are no longer trying to buy off jihadis or remain neutral. They seek to confront both the Sunni and the Shiite extremists
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-24/muslims-are-often-the-first-victims-of-muslim-terrorists