Houthis claim to have shot down US drone in Yemen’s Marib city

By Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) - Yemen's Houthi group said on Friday that it shot down a US drone in the Marib city on Thursday evening.

“Yemeni air defenses successfully shot down an American MQ-9 drone last Thursday evening while it was conducting hostile operations in the airspace of Marib province,” the group’s spokesperson Yahya Saree said on X.

“This is the fourth aircraft to be shot down during the Battle of the Promised Conquest and Holy Jihad in solidarity with Gaza,” Saree added.

He noted that the drone was targeted with “a locally-made surface-to-air missile.”

In solidarity with Gaza, which has been under a devastating Israeli onslaught since Oct. 7 of last year, the Houthis have been using missiles and drones to target ships that are Israeli-owned, flagged, operated, or headed to Israeli ports in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

The US and UK also conducted airstrikes against Houthi sites in Yemen, as the group also declared that all American and British ships are its military targets.