Yemeni forces shoot down Saudi reconnaissance drone in Jizan

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from 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 the kingdom’s southwestern border region of Jizan.

An unnamed Yemen military source told Yemen’s Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni air defense forces and their allies shot down the drone as it was on a reconnaissance mission over Hariqah area in the Wadi Jarrah district of the province, located 969 kilometers south of the capital Riyadh, on Friday evening.

Separately, Yemeni army forces and Popular Committees fighters fired three domestically-developed Zelzal-1 (Earthquake-1) ballistic missiles at a position of Saudi troops and Yemeni militiamen loyal to former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi in the al-Khobe area of Jizan region, leaving a number of them killed and injured.

A bulldozer belonging to Saudi coalition was also destroyed after a barrage of Yemeni artillery rounds slammed into the strategic Jabal al-Doud military base in the same Saudi region.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of Hadi back to power and crushing the country’s popular Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The Legal Center for Rights and Developments in Yemen, in a statement released on October 15, announced that the ongoing Saudi coalition military campaign against the impoverished and conflict-plagued Arab country has resulted in the death of 15,185 civilians, including 3,527 children and 2,277 women.

A total of 23,822 civilians, among them 3,526 children and 2,587 women, have also sustained injuries, and are currently suffering from the lack of medicine, medical supplies and poor treatment due to the crippling siege.

The center highlighted that aerial assaults being conducted by the saudi coalition military alliance have resulted in the destruction of 15 airports and 14 ports, and damaged 2,559 roads and bridges in addition to 781 water storage facilities, 191 power stations and 426 telecommunications towers.

The statement went on to say that the incessant bombardment campaign has destroyed more than 421,911 houses, 930 mosques, 888 schools, 327 hospitals and health facilities plus 38 media organizations, halted the operation of 4,500 schools and left more than 4 million people internally displaced.

In addition, the Saudi coalition has targeted 1,818 government facilities, 749 food storehouses, 621 food trucks, 628 shops and commercial compounds, 362 fuel stations, 265 tankers, 339 factories, 310 poultry and livestock farms, 219 archaeological sites, 279 tourist facilities and 112 playgrounds and sports complexes.