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Seven of the United States’ premier long-range offensive drones have been shot down by Houthi counterfire in the skies over Yemen, with the latest occurring on April 22nd.
Costing $30 million each, the MQ-9 Reaper drones have all been eliminated within the last 30 days, demonstrating a surprising ability for the Houthis to defend themselves against these machines that are reviled by the people in the country, regardless of their opinions on the Houthis’ leadership.
Having already demonstrated their ability to launch missiles all the way to Israel, and significantly damage shipping in the Red Sea, the Houthis also evidently have weapons to target high-altitude aircraft, as several of the MQ-9s were reportedly conducting surveillance.
Since March, the US has launched 750 manned and unmanned air strikes in the country, killing perhaps as many as 150 civilians or more, and wounding hundreds in addition to the dead. On April 18th, the US hit oil shipments offloading at the oil port of Ras Isa, one of three in Houthi-controlled areas that can handle large inbound shipments, and the ports of call for most fuel shipments into the country.
The strikes caused large explosions and fire from ignited oil containers, killed 80 and wounded 150—most of whom were civilians, local health officials reported. It’s one of the deadliest attacks in the country by US forces, while the Houthi-controlled media said rescue workers and paramedics were among the casualties.
“Today, US forces took action to eliminate this source of fuel for the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists,” United States CENTCOM said on Thursday in a post on social media. “The objective of these strikes was to degrade the economic source of power of the Houthis”.
Economic means civilian, and so the strikes could constitute war crimes for being both deliberate targeting of civilians and the deliberate targeting of vital civilian resources, since 70% of all national imports and 80% of all international aid comes through Ras Isa and Hodeidah ports for the nation of nearly 41 million people.
The Ras Isa port and pipeline were called “critical and irreplaceable infrastructure” in Yemen, according to the United Nations Development Program. For its part, the UN recently met with Houthi representatives in neighboring Oman for discussions of how to stabilize the situation in the poorest country in the Middle-East.
As WaL has reported before, the UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Hans Grundberg, has done more to secure the end of open hostilities against Yemen and the resumption of international entry for aid and personnel into the country than anyone else, and was instrumental in the 2022 armistice between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, and the transition of power from former-President Hadi to the Presidential Leadership Council that holds power in the country’s south.
In a statement posted on X, Grundberg’s office said talks “centered on the necessity to stabilize the situation in #Yemen to allow all Yemenis to live in dignity and prosperity and to address the legitimate concerns of all stakeholders including the region and the international community”.
Grundberg “reiterated his commitment to continue to work toward that goal, as part of his efforts toward sustainable peace in Yemen”. The Houthis claim their strikes against Israel and interntional shipping, which drew the significant reaction from CENTCOM, are in support of the people of Gaza, who have been dying every week by the hundreds since Hamas launched its attack beyond the walls of Gaza in October of 2023, and that as long as the siege of Gaza and strikes on Yemen continue, the Houthis will continue striking back. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: MQ-9 Reaper drones fly in formation. PC: Licensed from Shutterstock.
