An American MQ-9 Reaper drone

Yemen’s Armed Forces have announced shooting down of an advanced American drone as the aircraft was performing an operation in support of the Israeli regime.

The MQ-9 Reaper drone was brought down using a surface-to-air missile as the aircraft was flying in the airspace over Yemen’s territorial waters, the Armed Forces said in a statement on Wednesday, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.

The aircraft was struck while carrying out an hostile espionage operation within the framework of the United States’ military support for the Israeli regime, the statement added.

Yemen’s Armed Forces lay emphasis on their legitimate right to defend the country and confront all hostile threats, said the forces’ spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree.

These hostile maneuvers do not serve to prevent the Yemeni Armed Forces from conducting military operations against the Zionist regime of Israel and in support of the Palestinian nation, he added.

The Yemeni Army has recently conducted several military operations against Israeli targets in response to the occupying regime’s October 7-present war against the Palestinian territory of the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed more than 10,500 Palestinians.

On Tuesday, the country’s Armed Forces said they had launched a large-scale drone strike against sensitive targets in the occupied territories in a show of support for Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip.

On October 31 too, the forces had launched large-scale military strikes against Israeli targets using a large batch of ballistic and winged missiles, and a large number of drones.

Yemen’s military has vowed to keep up the strikes as long as the occupying regime presses on with its war against Gaza.