Yemeni air defense units have shot down a Saudi reconnaissance drone in flight over a border area in the kingdom’s southwestern province of Jizan.
Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah satellite television network, citing military sources, reported that the drone was shot down over the province’s Jarah valley on Sunday.
Yemeni forces also managed to shoot down another Saudi spy drone in Jabal al-Doud area of the same troubled province on Saturday evening.
Nearly two dozen spy drones have been shot down since the Saudi war on the impoverished country began over three years ago.
Separately, Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, thwarted an infiltration attempt by killing and injuring many Saudi mercenaries in the violence-hit border region. They also destroyed a Saudi military vehicle and seized some ammunition.
Saudi Arabia and some of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Yemen’s former president and a staunch ally of Riyadh, and crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.
The movement, which is a significant aid to the Yemeni army in defending the country against the invading forces, has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration during the past three years.
The imposed war initially consisted of a bombing campaign but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces into Yemen.
Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.
The Saudi-led aggression has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations has already said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.
Several Western countries, the United States and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.