US-Made Spy Drone Brought Down in Yemen’s Ma’rib Province

In a brief statement, the Yemeni Armed Forces spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said on Sunday that the surveillance drone was shot down with a “appropriate weapon.”

“Our air defenses, thanks to God, were able to shoot down an American-made ScanEagle spy plane using a suitable weapon, while it was carrying out hostile actions yesterday evening, Saturday, in the airspace of the Juba district in Ma’rib province,” Saree said.

The operation to shoot down the drone was carried out with an unidentified missile, according to the spokesman.

In December, the Yemeni Armed Forces shot down four ScanEagle spy drones in the governorates of Al-Jawf and Marib, as well as a number of Chinese-made spy drones in the province of Shabwa.

In recent months, Yemeni forces have shot down at least 13 ScanEagle spy drones, many of which over areas controlled by the army and allied Popular Committee forces in Ma’rib.

ScanEagle is a small, long-endurance, low-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built by Insitu, a subsidiary of Boeing, and is used for espionage activities. Each ScanEagle system reportedly costs US$3.2 million.

Since last summer, the Yemeni army and its allied fighters have been involved in an operation to liberate Ma’rib from militants allied to the former Riyadh-allied regime.

The militants, despite receiving heavy aerial support from the Saudi-led military coalition, have suffered huge losses on the battlefield, with the army forces expected to liberate the city in the near future.

Ma’rib, where many oil and gas resources of Yemen are located, has currently the largest concentration of Saudi-backed militants. The province’s recapture will thus mark a turning point in the defense campaign against the Riyadh-led war coalition.

Riyadh and its regional allies, including the United Arab Emirates, launched the devastating war against its impoverished southern neighbor in 2015. The conflict, coupled with the crippling blockade, has triggered a severe humanitarian crisis in the country, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.