The Yemeni militia shot down its first MQ-9 over Sanaa in October 2017, mastering the use of a locally modified variant of the Soviet 2K12 Kub medium-range surface-to-air missile system and other legacy SAMs to destroy the heavy $31 million apiece General Atomics unmanned aerial vehicles.
Yemen’s Houthis brought down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone on Sunday, bringing the Reapers’ total losses over Yemen to ten, including seven since the start of the Red Sea Crisis last October.
A source told Sputnik that the drone had been shot down using the 2K12 Kub – a Soviet air defense system developed in the 1960s to take on array of aerial threats.
The Houthis are known to have modified the Kub – which was delivered to Yemen during the Cold War and in the 1990s in large quantities, to fire the homegrown Fater-1 (lit. ‘Innovator-1’) interceptor missile in 2019.
Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised statement that the drone had been down while “conducting hostile activities” in the skies over Saada.
Saree added that Houthi naval and missile forces had mounted a joint operation to target the Liberian-flagged MV Groton container ship in the Gulf of Aden using ballistic missiles, saying the ship had “violated the decision to ban entry to the ports of occupied Palestine.”
The US-led Red Sea coalition’s Joint Maritime Information Center (JMIC) confirmed that the Groton had been targeted in a missile attack, saying the attack occurred Saturday about 225 km southeast of Aden, and caused minor damage to the ship. “All crew on board are safe,” and “the vessel was reported diverting to a port nearby,” JMIC said.
Photos of wreckage of a drone have appeared on social media, showing remnants of a matte-grey UAV lying on a rocky hillside in a rural area with dozens of people gathered around it. Sputnik could not immediately confirm the veracity of the photos.
$31 million US MQ-9 Reaper drone lies in a desert in Marib, Yemen after being shot down by Houthi air defenses. – Sputnik International, 1920, 31.05.2024
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Saada province is situated in northwestern Yemen, straddling the Saudi border to its north. The province is located about 200 km north of the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
United States Central Command – the combatant command responsible for US military operations in the Middle East, has not yet commented on whether the Pentagon has lost another Reaper, but the Houthis have not been known to exaggerate claims about their military successes in the past, with the US confirming their previous MQ-9 kills.
Saree said the Houthis would continue their military operations in a series of “escalation phases,” and would not stop until aggression against Yemen was stopped and the siege of Gaza lifted.
The reported drone shootdown and attack on the MV Groton is the first major operation mounted by the Houthis in two weeks, and comes after the deadly July 20 Israeli attack on the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah, which targeted the port’s oil facilities and a power plant, killed nine people and injured 87 others.
Israel launched that attack after the Houthis flew a large drone into downtown Tel Aviv, crashing it into a building about 100 meters from the US Consulate.
Dec. 20, 2012: The aircraft carriers USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), and USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) are in port at Naval Station Norfolk, Va., the world’s largest naval station. – Sputnik International, 1920, 03.08.2024
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Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi vowed earlier this week that the militia would support a “military response” to Israel’s “shameless and dangerous” assassination of Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, slamming the killing as “a brazen crime” and “a blatant violation of international norms.”
“The stance of the Axis of Resistance is unequivocal: There must be a military response to Israeli transgressions,” al-Houthi said.
No Reapers are known to be operated by Israel. Along with the US military, the CIA, and US Customs and Border Protection, MQ-9s are present in the air forces and coast guard units of France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Britain, Japan and India.
The Pentagon has used Reapers extensively over Yemen going back to 2001 to target suspected al-Qaeda* fighters.
After the Houthis gained control over much of western Yemen in 2014/2015, the US began using the drones to assist a Gulf coalition assembled to try to eject the militia from power. Since November, the US has been using the drones to surveil and strike the Houthis amid their semi-blockade of the Red and Arabian Seas to merchant shipping.
Reapers aren’t the only NATO-made aircraft brought down or damaged by the Houthis since 2015, with the militia also taking down at least three F-16 fighter jets, dozens of airplane-style and helicopter drones, and nearly a dozen other manned aircraft, including Mirage 2000, Eurofighter Typhoon, F-15 and Tornado jets, AH-64 Apache, AH-60, S-70 Black Hawk and SA-365 helicopters.
Armed Yemeni men step over a US and an Israeli flag painted on the asphalt in the Houthi-run capital Sanaa, during a march in support of the Palestinians amid ongoing battles between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, on February 29, 2024. – Sputnik International, 1920, 28.07.2024
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By Ilya Tsukanov
Published by Sputnik Globe
Republished by The 21st Century
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of 21cir.com