US MQ-9 Reaper Drone Shot Down Over Yemen's Capital by Army, Militia

Yemeni air defenses shot down a US MQ-9 Reaper drone on Sunday, October 1, over the Jadar neighborhood in the capital, Sana’a, Yemen’s state news agency SABA and others reported. The near-$20-million spy plane augured into the ground.

The Houthi-controlled SABA agency quoted a military official as saying the Army and members of various militias brought down the drone, though it was not immediately clear from the footage what was used to strike it from the ground.

A Reuters photographer said the drone came down at about 11 am local time in a crowded area on Sanaa’s outskirts, but there were no reports of any casualties. The charred wreckage of the aircraft was carried out by the Houthis aboard a Toyota pickup truck, Reuters reported.

This video shows the drone shortly after the explosion that brought it down, as the damaged spy plane gains velocity and starts to corkscrew towards its crash.

The two-year-old Yemeni civil war has left at least 10,000 dead and hundreds of thousands displaced and subject to diseases such as cholera, and has caused what the United Nations has described as a humanitarian catastrophe. Credit: YouTube/Hkem Ahmed via Storyful