Al-Houthi drones.. a scanty Iranian weapon in search of moral victories
English - Sunday 27 March 2022 الساعة 04:52 pm
Sana'a, NewsYemen, private:
Last Friday night, March 25, the eyes of the Saudis and the world were watching the scenes of clouds of smoke covering the sky of Jeddah, as a result of the fire in Aramco's fuel tanks after it was attacked by a drone by the Houthi militia.
The attack on the oil facility was part of a large-scale attack launched by the militias with 16 missiles and drones targeting civilian facilities on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the launch of the Decisive Storm on the night of March 26, 2015, by bombing Houthi militia sites in Sanaa and Yemeni cities after they crossed the red line drawn by Saudi Arabia for them by not entering the city of Aden.
Although the attacks did not result in any casualties and were satisfied with material losses; However, the Houthi group tried to make of it a moral victory in front of its supporters by being able to bomb the Saudi depth at a symbolic time, which is the anniversary of the storm, even if this did not have any military gains that would make a difference in the balance of power. This is what the drones achieve for her.
Despite the intensity of attacks with this weapon since the beginning of the war, which amounted to 953 attacks, targeting the coalition countries (Saudi Arabia and the UAE), according to what a Houthi militia spokesman said last week; However, its effects did not exceed the material aspect and some limited human losses among civilians.
This is due to the limited destructive ability of Houthi drones as a result of their weak technical and technical capabilities, which prevent them from carrying larger quantities of explosives or missiles due to their small size and small engines, which is the only advantage they have that is difficult to monitor by air defense systems.
Also, these marches gathered by Iranian experts in Houthi-controlled areas are characterized by a weak ability to control them to hit the target with high accuracy, especially at long distances, so most of them turn into suicide planes with one mission without return.
These limited capabilities of the Houthi drones make it useless to target any military target inside the Saudi or Emirati depths, which explains the Houthi group’s resort to targeting civilian facilities to cause moral or financial damage more than destructive.
This can be clearly seen by tracking the recent attacks of the Houthi militia since the beginning of this year, which targeted the UAE and Saudi Arabia with the use of drones.
These attacks focused on targeting oil facilities, especially oil tanks, for their ease of targeting and setting them on fire to cause the greatest damage; As an attempt to threaten a vital and influential sector for the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Also, some attacks targeted civilian airports with the aim of disrupting the navigational movement, even for a few minutes, to create a moral victory; The group realizes that this weapon has no ability to target any airport or military base.
Despite this, the Houthi group continues to use drones and exaggerate its achievements despite targeting civilian facilities. Therefore, due to its awareness of the difficulty faced by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and even the countries of the world, including America and Russia, in confronting drones, especially small ones, and air defense systems to address them are still under development.
The current air defense systems, led by the Patriot, are designed to intercept large objects such as missiles and planes, and it is difficult for them to monitor small objects such as drones, and monitoring them through these systems is very expensive. The value of the interceptor missile in the Patriot system reaches one million dollars, while the value of Houthi drones is not More than 10,000 dollars.
