The Yemeni military has carried out retaliatory attacks on an airbase in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern province of Asir, using a squadron of domestically-manufactured combat drones.
Brigadier General Yahya Saree, the spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, told Yemen’s al-Masirah television that a number of Qasef-2K (Striker-2K) drones conducted airstrikes against vital targets in King Khalid Air Base on Thursday morning.
He added that one of the drones hit the base’s communications system while others targeted its fuel tanks and a gas station at the base. He said all drones successfully hit their designated targets.
Saree said the attacks were in response to the 40 Saudi airstrikes that had hit Yemen over the past 48 hours and that left a number of Yemeni civilians dead or wounded.
The airbase, which is located in the vicinity of Khamis Mushait City, belongs to the Royal Saudi Air Force (RSAF).
Yemeni forces regularly target positions inside Saudi Arabia in retaliation for the Saudi-led war on Yemen, which began in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall a former regime and eliminate the Houthi Ansarullah movement.
According to estimates by the US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), the Saudi-led war has killed more than 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
