Yemeni forces have intercepted and shot down a third surveillance drone belonging to the Saudi military coalition, flying in the skies over the border of the southwestern Saudi region of Jizan. The Saudi drone was downed with a precision-guided missile over the Jahfan area of the region on Thursday (5/12/2019), according to Press TV quoting the Arabic-language al-Masirah television network.
A spokesman for Yemeni Armed Forces Brigadier General Yahya Saree wrote in posts published on his Twitter page that Yemeni forces and their allies shot down a Saudi reconnaissance spy drone on Wednesday(4/12/2019). “One spy drone was shot down near the border of the southwestern Saudi region of Jizan, while the other drone was downed near the southern Saudi region of Asir,” the statement read. Yemen’s retaliatory attacks against Saudi Arabia over its war on the impoverished country was the latest operations. In retaliation against the Saudi war, Yemeni forces regularly target positions inside Saudi Arabia.
The Drone War: A Humanitarian Crisis
The poorest country on the Arabian Peninsula, war-stricken Yemen, has been battered by what the UN describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. This was the result of the devastating Saudi war.
Houthi rebels have been using drones in combat since the start of the Saudi-led war. The first appeared to be off-the-shelf, hobby-kit-style drones, but later versions have been nearly identical to Iranian models. Tehran denies supplying the rebels with weapons, but the west and Gulf Arab nations say it does.
The rebels have flown drones into the radar arrays of Saudi Arabia’s Patriot missile batteries, according to Conflict Armament Research, disabling them and allowing them to fire ballistic missiles into the kingdom unchallenged.
A nonprofit conflict-research organization, the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past four and a half years. The country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories have also been affected due to the war. As the drone war enters a new stage, the UN estimates over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid.
