Yemeni Forces Shoot Down Saudi Spy Drone in Jizan

By Staff, Agencies

The Yemeni army and Popular Committees successfully shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle [UAV] belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition while flying in the skies over Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan.

An unnamed source in the Yemeni air defense forces told the Ansarullah media bureau that the army forces and their allies shot down the drone as it was on a spy mission east of the mountainous Jabal al-Nar area of the region, located 967 kilometers southwest of the capital Riyadh, on Friday afternoon.

The news came hours after the army forces downed another Saudi-led spy drone in the skies northeast of al-Durayhimi district in Yemen’s western coastal province of al-Hudaydah.

Yemeni forces seem to have developed a sophisticated air defense network to fight off Riyadh's drone attacks.

They downed an MQ-1 Predator last month, a US-made drone, using a surface-to-air missile.

Ansarullah movement announced in April that Yemeni air defense forces and their allies had shot down a Chinese-built medium-altitude and long-endurance Wing Loong drone with a surface-to-air missile.

Yemen's air defenses also downed three more Saudi spy drones of unspecified models in various parts of the country.

In late March, Yemeni soldiers and fighters from Popular Committees had intercepted and shot down an MQ-1 drone in the Hamdan district of Sana’a province.

The development comes as Yemeni fighters have achieved great strides in developing domestic attack drones and using them to orchestrate devastating retaliatory attacks on oil facilities and other vital Saudi targets.

Last month, Ansarullah said about 300 critical targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates [UAE] as well as in Yemen were in its crosshairs.

The warning came after the Yemeni army launched retaliatory drone attacks on a major oil pumping station deep inside Saudi Arabia, forcing state crude giant Aramco to temporarily shut down the pipeline.

The ability to shoot down enemy drones and conduct drone offensives is the latest game-changing development in a years-long war by Saudi Arabia and its regional allies -- mainly the UAE.