Yemeni Forces Shoot Down ‘American MQ-9’ Drone over Ma’rib

Yemeni media released footage that appears to show an MQ-9 Reaper drone being struck by an anti-air missile.

On Tuesday, the Yemeni military spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree announced that the Air Defenses had struck an “American MQ9 drone” with a home-made missile, Al-Masirah reported.

According to Saree, the drone was operating over Ma’rib Governorate and had attacked the country’s advancing forces in several of the province’s districts.

On Wednesday, video of the shootdown was posted by Yemeni media on Twitter.

Some media reports claimed that this could also have been a Saudi lookalike drone, but if it’s truly an American Reaper, this would be the fourth US drone the Yemenis have shot down.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies, chief among them the United Arab Emirates, launched the war on Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of Riyadh-allied former President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi back to power and crushing the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The war has claimed more than 100,000 lives in Yemen, according to the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization.