Yemeni Air Defenses Shoot Down Saudi “Spy” Drone

The Yemeni Houthi rebels have claimed to have shot down a “spy” drone belonging to Saudi-led coalition forces while it was flying over Yemen’s Hodeidah Governorate on Tuesday.

“A spy drone of the Saudi-led coalition was destroyed in Al-Faza area of Attohayta district while it was carrying out hostilities,” a military source was quoted as saying by Houthi-aligned Al-Masirah.

On March 1, the Houthi rebels shot down another drone of Saudi and its allies, the report said.

The Saudi-led international coalition and the Yemeni government are yet to comment on the incident.

This comes nearly a month after Yemeni Houthis brought down a Saudi Tornado fighter jet with a missile launched by Yemen's advanced air defense system incorporating "new technology."

In 2018, Yemen claimed to have shot down a Tornado aircraft and an F-15. Two US-made Saudi drones- MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1 Predator, were shot down by Yemeni forces a year later. Yemeni Houtis also claimed to have orchestrated the deadly drone attack on Saudi oil facilities- Abqaiq and Khurais, some of the largest in the world, in mid-September 2019.

Saudi Arabia led a regional coalition that launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015 to bring former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power after the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement seized power. Some 100,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and infrastructure destroyed in indiscriminate bombings since then.