Houthis on a roll

Julian Macfarlane

Jul 22, 2024

The Houthis have upped their game, striking Tel Aviv with a large, long distance drone. The target was likely a US consular building. But the drone hit another building about 100 meters away.

It was a demonstration— and incitement.

Israel, the US and the UK took the bait with heavy bombing of fuel depot and oil refineries at the port of Al-Hudaydah, killing 3 and wounding 87.

The Yemenis vowed revenge, of course. The Houthis gained more political support at home.

As I said months ago, the Houthis have be upgrading their weaponry — of course with Iranian help. A lot of their materiel is developed at home — and everybody is encouraged to pitch in, motivated by the ongoing genocide.

Some now think the Russians may soon help. After all, it the US and UK can do it for Ukraine, why not Russia for Yemen.

However, at this point, Yemen doesn’t need that much help. No one knows how to use drones as effectively as they do.

From Geopolitics Live

The Houthis say the Yafa, a mysterious new ultra long-range airplane-style drone with radar-evading capabilities, carried out Friday’s attack.

Analysts studying footage of the drone’s approach say it looks similar to the Samad-3 – a Houthi drone that’s 2.8 m long, has a 4.5 m wingspan, a 1,500-1,800 km range and a 250 km/h top speed.

The Samad series is actually a whole lineup of UAVs, from the Samad-1 – a surveillance drone with a 3.5 m wingspan and 500 km range, to the Samad-4 – which can carry twin unguided bombs on hard points under its wings. The latter is about 3 m long, has a 5 m wingspan, a 2,000 km+ range, and a 50 kg payload.

The Houthis also operate Qasef-1 and Qasef-2K kamikaze drones – simple, low-cost UAVs thought to have taken design cues from the HESA Ababil and featuring a 30 kg warhead. Qasef series drones are roughly 3 m long, have a 3.25 m wingspan, and a 100 km+ range. They’re complemented by the Wa’aed, another Houthi loitering munition with characteristics similar to those of the Shahed 136 drone (3.5 m long, 2.5 m wingspan, 200 kg mass, 50 kg warhead and top speed up to 185 km/h).

The militia rolled out the Khatif-1, a small tele-guided strike drone with an estimated 10 kg payload and a range of a few dozen km in 2021. An upgrade featuring an x-shaped tail instead of the normal ‘v’ was spotted in 2022, but its characteristics are unknown.

The Houthis also operate the Mersad-1 and Mersad-2 series of surveillance drones – thought to be based on a reverse-engineered Boeing RQ-21s Blackjack –a 2.5 m long, 37-61 kg UAV with a 4.9 m wingspan, 93 km range and top speed of 170 km/h.

In other words, the Houthis have the resources. Their strategy is gradualist and attritive — just as it was in their successful war with the Saudi’s powerful and technologically advanced military.

Israel Bleeding

Israel will bleed from a thousand cuts. Or a thousand drones.

Israeli soldiers are plagued by nightmares, the economy is collapsing, and diplomacy eroding, former Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Monday.

Nine months have passed since the deadly surprise attack by Hamas on the state of Israel and its people, and it seems as though nothing has changed within the Israeli leadership,” Lieberman wrote in an article published on the Israeli news site Walla.

“Children and adults, soldiers, and reservists are suffering from nightmares about what has happened and what might happen. The Israeli economy is collapsing, and Israeli diplomacy is eroding,” the leader of the right-wing opposition Yisrael Beiteinu Party added.

Referring to tensions between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah, Lieberman said: “The north is desolate and scorched; Iran continues to arm itself; and while all this is happening, the corrupt government continues as if nothing has happened.

In the meantime, in the US Blinken is talking up the dangers of Iran getting nuclear weapons next week or the week after. No, I am not joking.