Yemeni air defense forces intercept, down Saudi-led reconnaissance drone

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from the Popular Committees, have intercepted and targeted an unmanned aerial vehicle belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition as it was flying in the skies over Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border region of Jizan.

An unnamed source in the Yemeni air defense forces told the media bureau of the Houthi Ansarullah movement that Yemeni forces and their allies shot down the drone while on a reconnaissance mission east of the al-Khobe district of the region, located 967 kilometers southwest of the capital Riyadh, on Thursday.

The development came less than a week after Yemeni air defense forces and their allies intercepted a spy drone launched by the Saudi-led military alliance over the besieged city of al-Durayhimi in Yemen’s western coastal province of Hudaydah.

Yemeni forces intercept, shoot down Saudi-led reconnaissance drone in Najran

Yemeni air defense forces and their allies have targeted and shot down a Saudi-led coalition reconnaissance drone in the skies over Saudi Arabia’s Najran region.

Back on February 8, Yemeni army forces and allied fighters from Popular Committees shot down a Saudi-led drone with a surface-to-air missile as it was on a reconnaissance mission over Kilo 16 district of the same Yemeni province.

Also on Thursday, an unnamed source in the Liaison and Coordination Officers Operations Room said that during the past 24 hours forces of the Saudi-led military coalition and their mercenaries have breached 116 times an agreement reached between the warring sides during a round of UN-sponsored peace negotiations in Sweden in December 2018.

The source at the monitor added that the violations included reconnaissance flights over the 50th Street neighborhood, formation of three fortification lines in Jabaliyah, Kilo 16 and the 50th Street areas, 34 counts of artillery and mortar shelling, as well as 72 shooting incidents in various regions.

Delegates from the Ansarullah movement and representatives loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi attended the peace negotiations in Rimbo on the outskirts of the Swedish capital Stockholm. The talks resulted in the announcement of a break-through agreement.

The document included three provisions: a ceasefire along the Hudaydah front and the redeployment of armed forces out of the city and its port; an agreement on prisoner exchange; and a statement of understanding on the southern Yemeni city of Ta’izz.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched the devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing back to power the government of Hadi and crushing the Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past nearly five years.

Three civilians killed as Saudi-led militia shell Yemen’s Hudaydah

At least three civilians are killed after Saudi-led militia forces shell an area in Yemen’s Hudaydah.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have purchased billions of dollars' worth of weapons from the United States, France and the United Kingdom in the war on Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition has been widely criticized for the high civilian death toll from its bombing campaign. The alliance has carried out nearly 20,500 air raids in Yemen, according to the data collected by the Yemen Data Project.

The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.

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