Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen shot down a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone operating in international airspace off the country’s coast, a Defense Department official confirmed Wednesday.
U.S. Central Command is currently piecing together how Yemen’s Houthi rebels were able to destroy one of the remotely-piloted aircraft, which can carry up to eight laser-guided Hellfire missiles and cost more than $30 million each, the Pentagon official said.
A spokesman for the Houthi forces said the MQ-9 drone was carrying out “hostile monitoring and spying operations” when it was shot down by the group’s air defense forces. Houthi officials claimed the drone was operating over Yemeni territorial waters.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces affirm its legitimate right to defend the country and confront all hostile threats,” Houthi spokesman Yahya Sare’e said on Twitter.
The Houthi rebels have aligned themselves with Hamas in its war against Israel. On Oct. 20, a U.S. warship intercepted multiple missiles and drones apparently fired by the Houthis as they were heading north along the Red Sea on a trajectory toward Israel. Israel itself said its missile defense systems had shot down an unidentified “aerial target” coming from Yemen in recent days.
President Biden has dispatched U.S. warships, troops and other assets to the region specifically to warn Iran and its network of allies around the region not to try to exploit the Israel-Hamas war to broaden the conflict.
The Houthis, locked in a long, bloody civil war for control of the region’s poorest country, claim to have fired at least four salvos of drones and missiles toward southern Israel since Oct. 7, the Associated Press reported. The group controls the capital and much of northern and western Yemen where the majority of the country’s population lives.
• Mike Glenn can be reached at mglenn@washingtontimes.com.
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