Yemen’s Inexpensive Drones Wreaking Expensive Havoc

by Joziah Thayer Posted onAugust 14, 2024

As the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia continued to conduct siege warfare in Yemen, the Houthis threatened to use drones to attack the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia if the blockade and daily bombardments of Yemen continued. In October 2019, the Houthis used ten drones to attack the Saudi Aramco facility, knocking it offline for days and causing the global oil markets to spiral for weeks after the attack. A few months later, in January 2022, the Houthis launched a sophisticated drone attack on the illustrious UAE capital of Abu Dhabi. The Houthi attack on Abu Dhabi seemed to shake the Emirates into rethinking their war strategy in Yemen, and less than a month later, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE were locked in peace talks.

More recently, the Houthis have used drones to form a blockade of the Red Sea, throwing a stick into the bike spokes of global trade. According to the Armed Conflict Location Event Data project, Operation Prosperity Guardian has been successful in knocking down roughly 75% of the Houthi drones launched into the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea, but the problem is the missiles they are using to shoot down Houthi drones cost millions of dollars, and the Houthi drones cost thousands of dollars. Legacy media outlets spew a common misconception that the Houthis are getting these drones directly from Iran despite the fact that the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen concluded that components to build the drones are smuggled from abroad and manufactured locally in Yemen. Iran gave the Houthis the blueprint to create their own drone fleet in 2018; the drones fired from Yemen are developed and manufactured in Yemen. The United States gave Iran the blueprints to start its nuclear program in the 1950s. Does that mean that the United States is responsible for Iran’s nuclear program?

The Houthis first made their drone program public in 2017, but it had little to no impact on the war in Yemen until technology from Iran expedited the Houthi drone program in 2018, and in April of that year, the Houthis announced their first successful drone attack. According to an ACLED report from 2019 to 2020, the Houthis launched over 100 drone attacks, with the majority of them targeting Saudi Arabia and coalition forces in Yemen. Most of these attacks were conducted using one-way Qasif-1 suicide drones, and in 2021, the group was introduced to multi-use commercial drones that could drop different weapons and return to base. Over the next two years, the Houthis continued to develop their drone program, unveiling their multi-use drone fleet of short and long-range drones like the Mudhud-1, Rujum, Mersad-1, Mersad-2, Sammad-3 and Sammad-4.

The Houthis used their new fleet to change the course of the war in Yemen. In 2021, the Houthis launched 280 successful drone attacks, with half of them hitting their targets in Saudi Arabia and the other half targeting the Houthis domestic foes in Southern and Western Yemen. The following year, the Houthis carried out 240 drone attacks, most of them pummeling forces loyal to the GCC coalition and the Internationally Recognized government of Yemen, driving them to the bargaining table for peace talks in April 2022. After a truce was reached in the nine-year war in Yemen, Houthi drone attacks outside of Yemen came to a halt. The Houthis started to use the drones more in their domestic battles to support ground initiatives like the assault on Marib in mid-2022.

That all changed in October 2023 when tensions between Hamas and Israel reached a boiling point after a string of attacks that killed over 1,200 Israelis, marking the largest attack on Israeli soil in the nation’s history. The world is still waiting for the region to break out into a much larger war, and geopolitical minds pointed to all the normal players like Hezbollah and Iran while completely ignoring the Houthis. Even when the Houthis threatened to attack international trade if Israel did not halt its bombardment of Gaza, Israel, the United States, and the rest of the global world scoffed at the idea that the Houthis could actually impact international trade. Since November 2023, the Houthis have launched 360 drone attacks, with over 50% of them targeting international waters.

Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research for Drewry, told the AP that at least 90% of container ships that used to travel through the Red Sea are now rerouting around Africa. According to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the cost to send a standard 40-foot container ship from China to Europe went from $1,400 to $4,000. After one month of the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea, economists estimated an overall 1.3% decline in world trade during the 2023 Christmas season, and sea traffic passing through the Bel el Mandeb strait fell by 60%. By May of 2024, traffic at the port of Eilat, Israel’s only Red Sea port, ground to a halt, profits had fallen by 80% since the Houthi imposed blockade, and the Jerusalem Post announced the port of Eilat filed for bankruptcy.

Tensions between the Houthis, Israel, and the United States go back decades and did not start when the Houthis began their blockade of the Red Sea. The Houthis first burst onto the scene in 2002 as they held protests for days outside the Great Mosque in Sanaa against America’s invasion of Iraq. The US was offended that the protesters were chanting “Death to America and Death to Israel” and asked President Saleh to quash the protests. Yemeni police and troops arrested over 650 Zaydi revivalists in widespread crackdowns, and a 10 million dollar reward was offered to anyone in Yemen who killed or captured the group’s leader, Hussein al-Houthi. Tribal militias that rivaled the Zaydis teamed up with local police and government troops to attack Zaydi villages in the northern province of Sada to force out Hussein al-Houthi until he was eventually killed. This was when the Believing Youth Movement of Zaydi revivalists transitioned into being the armed militia group the world now knows as the Houthis.

Since October 7th, the Houthis have attacked Israel 53 times; the most significant attack occurred on July 19th when a drone launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen traveled 1,600 miles, subverting Israel’s air defenses before crashing into a high-rise in Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli and injuring four others. Yemen has proven that its drone program can not only change the tide of its civil war but also change Yemen’s standing on the global stage.​

The question the United States and Israel should be asking themselves is how they allowed such a drastic intelligence failure. They sat back on their hands as a former youth group with zero governing experience performed a geopolitical checkmate, shutting down one the most vital waterways in the world. The US and Israel often brag about being the global leaders in military intelligence and strategic awareness, yet they completely whiffed it as a volatile nation rapidly developed a drone fleet that could disrupt global commerce, travel over 1,500 miles undetected, and penetrate one of the most protected airspaces in the world.

Joziah Thayer is a researcher with the Pursuance Project. He founded WEDA in 2014 to combat mainstream media narratives. He is also an antiwar activist and the online organizer behind #OpYemen.