Qatar revealed the missiles and accompanying launch systems during its 2017 National Day parade on December 18. During the parade, Qatari forces showed what appeared to be two Chinese-made SY-400 SRBMs, carried on eight-axle transporter-erector-launchers. Qatar didn’t draw attention to the missiles during the parade, and the first person to point them out [3]on social media seems to have been Joseph Dempsey, a research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Although each pod can carry four SY-400 missiles, images suggested that Qatar’s had been configured to hold a single BP-12A missile, according to analysts [4], including Dempsey [5]. Since unveiling the system in 2008, China has consistently marketed the SY-400 system for export markets, comparing it to Russia’s Iskander-E. During a 2012 international arms show, officials from the China National Precision Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CPMIEC) said the BP-12A [6] is capable of carrying a 480-kilogram warhead to ranges up to 280 kilometers. This is notable because the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) places its strongest restrictions on exports of missiles that can carry a five-hundred-kilogram warhead for three hundred kilometers.