Yemen Develops Drones to Collect Information on Militiamen

Yemen Develops Drones to Collect Information on Militiamen

drones to collect information

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Yemeni army forces have revealed four domestically designed and manufactured drones to collect information on the positions and movements of militiamen loyal to resigned president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, as well as Saudi troops, and carry out aerial attacks against them.

The first device unveiled was a combat aircraft, code-named Qasef-1, that has a wingspan of three meters and a hull length of 2.5 meters. The drone has a flight endurance of 120 minutes, and is capable of carrying a payload of 30 kilograms.

Another remote-controlled aircraft, dubbed Hudhud-1, has a flight endurance of 90 minutes, and an operational radius of up to 30 kilometers. It has a wingspan of 1.9 meters and a hull length of 1.5 meters.

The Raqib (Rival) drone can fly as far as 15 kilometers for 90 minutes. It is used in reconnaissance missions and is capable of either storing information or transferring data via online connections.

The Rased (Surveyor) unmanned aerial vehicle, which can perform a variety of functions, including aerial monitoring and observation of the battlefield besides geophysical surveying, has a wingspan of 2.2 meters and a hull length of one meter. The drone has a flight endurance of 120 minutes plus an operational radius of up to 35 kilometers.

According to presstv.ir, earlier this month, Yemeni army forces launched a locally designed and manufactured ballistic missile towards an area deep inside Saudi Arabia in response to Riyadh’s atrocious aerial bombardments against the crisis-stricken Arab country. The media bureau of the operations command in Yemen published photos of the Borkan-2 (Volcano-2) ballistic missile it used to hit a military base on the outskirts of Saudi capital city of Riyadh.

On September 2, 2016, Yemeni forces fired an indigenous Borkan-1 (Volcano-1) missile against a stationary target in the Saudi city of Ta’if, located more than 700 kilometers southeast of Riyadh. The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says the Saudi campaign has taken a toll of 10,000 Yemeni lives and left 40,000 others wounded.

In a report released in recent weeks, Yemen’s Legal Center for Rights and Development, an independent monitoring group, put the civilian death toll in the war-torn Arab country at 12,041.

The fatalities, it said, comprise 2,568 children and 1,870 women. The rights body said the bombings have also wounded 20,001 civilians, including 2,354 children and 1,960 women, while more than four million others have been displaced.