By Staff, Agencies

Yemeni army forces, supported by allied fighters from Popular Committees, managed to intercept and target a spy drone belonging to the Saudi-led military coalition in the skies over the kingdom’s southern border region of Najran, in retaliation for the alliance’s military aggression against their conflict-stricken country.

An unnamed Yemeni military source told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that Yemeni air defense units shot down the drone over Murabba’ al-Shabaka area of the region, situated 844 kilometers south of the capital Riyadh, on Tuesday evening.

Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the goal of bringing the government of former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the Houthi Ansarullah movement.

The US-based Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project [ACLED], a nonprofit conflict-research organization, estimates that the war has claimed more than 100,000 lives over the past four and a half years.

The war has also taken a heavy toll on the country’s infrastructure, destroying hospitals, schools, and factories. The UN says over 24 million Yemenis are in dire need of humanitarian aid, including 10 million suffering from extreme levels of hunger.