WASHINGTON: A US military MQ-9 drone was shot down in Yemen’s Dhamar governate, southeast of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa, two US officials told Reuters on Wednesday, the second such incident in recent months.
The officials said the drone was shot down late on Tuesday.
This is not the first time a US drone has been shot down in Yemen. In June, the US military said that Houthi rebels had shot down a US government-operated drone with assistance from Iran.
US forces have occasionally launched drone and air strikes against Yemen’s Al-Qaeda branch, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
The group has taken advantage of a four-year-old war between the Houthi movement and President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s internationally recognized government to try to strengthen its position in the impoverished country.
One of the officials said that it appeared that the armed military drone, made by California-based General Atomics, had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile operated by the Iran-aligned Houthi group.
“It appears to have been fired by the Houthis and enabled by Iran,” the official said, without providing details or specific evidence.
The official said that while losing a drone was expensive, it was not unprecedented and it was unlikely to lead to any major response by the United States.
The other official cautioned that it was too early to tell who was responsible for the incident.
In a statement, the US military said it was investigating reports that a drone had been attacked “in authorized airspace over Yemen.”
“We have been clear that Iran’s provocative actions and support to militants and proxies, like the Iranian-backed Houthis, poses a serious threat to stability in the region and our partners,” the US military’s Central Command said.
Overnight, a Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saria said that the drone had been shot down.
The drone shoot-down comes as tensions between Iran and the United States have risen since President Donald Trump’s administration last year quit an international deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and began to ratchet up sanctions.
US military drone shot down in Yemen
US military drone shot down in Yemen
- The MQ-9 drone was shot down in Yemen’s Dhamar governate, southeast of the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa,
- Official says drone had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile operated by the Iran-backed Houthis
Trump says Iran government change ‘best thing that could happen’
- US president's comments come after he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East
FORT BRAGG, United States: US President Donald Trump said a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen,” as he ordered a second aircraft carrier to head to the Middle East.
“Seems like that would be the best thing that could happen,” Trump told reporters at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina when a journalist asked if he wanted “regime change” in Iran.
“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking. In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk,” he told reporters.
Trump declined to say who he would want to take over in Iran from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but he added that “there are people.”
He has previously backed off full-throated calls for a change of government in Iran, warning that it could cause chaos, although he has made threats toward Khamenei in the past.
Speaking earlier at the White House, Trump said that the USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s largest warship — would be “leaving very soon” for the Middle East to up the pressure on Iran.
“In case we don’t make a deal, we’ll need it,” Trump said.
The giant vessel is currently in the Caribbean following the US overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro. Another carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is one of 12 US ships already in the Middle East.
When Iran began its crackdown on protests last month — which rights groups say killed thousands — Trump initially said that the United States was “locked and loaded” to help demonstrators.
But he has recently focused his military threats on Tehran’s nuclear program, which US forces struck last July during Israel’s unprecedented 12-day war with Iran.
The protests have subsided for now but US-based Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah, urged international intervention to support the Iranian people.
“We are asking for a humanitarian intervention to prevent more innocent lives being killed in the process,” he told the Munich Security Conference.
It followed a call by the opposition leader, who has not returned to his country since before the revolution, for Iranians at home and abroad to continue demonstrations this weekend.
Iran and the United States, who have had no diplomatic relations since shortly after the revolution, held talks on the nuclear issue last week in Oman. No dates have been set for new talks yet.
The West fears the program is aimed at making a bomb, which Tehran denies.
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said Friday that reaching an accord with Iran on inspections of its processing facilities was possible but “terribly difficult.”
Trump said after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week that he wanted to continue talks with Iran, defying pressure from his key ally for a tougher stance.
The Israeli prime minister himself expressed skepticism at the quality of any agreement if it didn’t also cover Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, 7,008 people, mostly protesters, were killed in the recent crackdown, although rights groups warn the toll is likely far higher.
More than 53,000 people have also been arrested, it added.
The Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) NGO said “hundreds” of people were facing charges linked to the protests that could see them sentenced to death.
Figures working within the Iranian system have also been arrested, with three politicians detained this week from the so-called reformist wing of Iranian politics supportive of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The three — Azar Mansouri, Javad Emam and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh — were released on bail Thursday and Friday, their lawyer Hojjat Kermani told the ISNA news agency.
