Yemeni Houthi rebels have unveiled their newly-inducted air defense system that shot down a Saudi Tornado fighter on Friday night.
“It is part of a new, domestically-designed and sophisticated air defense system. It constitutes a serious obstacle to aerial aggression,” a military source was quoted as saying by Al Masirah on Sunday.
“Intercepting the Tornado warplane in the skies of Al-Jawf governorate is the first operational experiment of the weapon used to shoot down the British-made Tornado,” he added.
“A Tornado fighter plane of the Royal Saudi Air Force crashed in Al-Jawf and the communication with its crew was interrupted,” the spokesman for Saudi-led coalition said following the incident.
Saudi Arabia led a regional coalition that launched a devastating campaign against Yemen in March 2015 to bring former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power after the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement seized power. Some 100,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed and infrastructure destroyed in indiscriminate bombings since then.
The Yemeni Houti army has received considerable military help from Iran, a claim both sides deny. Previously, the Iranian military assets have been seen in use by the Houtis
