On February 19, 2024, an official Telegram account run by the Ansar Allah movement – the Houthis – published a short nighttime video purportedly showing an American MQ-9 Reaper attack drone and intelligence collection asset being shot down earlier the same day by a locally made surface-to-air missile in Yemen's Al-Hudaydah Governorate.
The Pentagon has confirmed that Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen shot down a MQ-9 Reaper drone on Monday, February 19, 2024.
The same day, the Houthi armed forces spokesman, Saree', claimed responsibility for the downing of the MQ9 attack drone, saying the aerial vehicle was intercepted "with an appropriate missile while it was carrying out hostile missions against our country on behalf of the Zionist entity." The operation was executed as part of ongoing Houthi hostilities under the guise of "triumphing the oppressed Palestinian people, and in retaliation to the American-British aggression against our country."
Following the attack, Houthis released footage of men dragging pieces of debris from the drone from the water onto a beach off the coast of Al-Hudaydah, a Yemeni port city on the Red Sea held by the Houthis.
Infographic: Sixth MQ-9 Reaper Since 2017
On February 21, the channel shared an infographic on Telegram bearing a photo of an American MQ-9 Reaper, claiming this was the sixth drone of this type to be shot down by Yemeni forces since 2017. According to the infographic, the first one was downed in Sanaa in 2017, followed by two similar incidents in Al-Hudaydah and Dhamar in June and August 2019, respectively, in addition to one in Ma'rib in 2021. The latest incident on record dates back to November 2023. It was the first since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, and the subsequent launch of Houthi hostilities in the Red and Arabian Seas.
The channelalso released a video showing similar content to the infographic, including technical specifications of the armed, multi-mission, medium-altitude, long-endurance, remotely piloted aircraft, and operational data such as the thrust, wingspan, length, height, fuel capacity, payload, and range.
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