Rain tries to play spoilsport but show goes on at Campal

Yemen’s Huthi rebels shot down an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, a senior US defense official said Wednesday, confirming an earlier claim by the Iran-backed group.

The Huthis — who have downed an American drone before — said the MQ-9 was spying as part of US support for Israel in its war against Hamas.

“A US military MQ-9 remotely-piloted aircraft was shot down off the coast of Yemen by Huthi forces,” the official said.

The Huthis — who seized Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 and control large swathes of the country — claimed the shootdown earlier in the day.

“Our air defences were able to down an American MQ-9 while it was carrying out hostile surveillance and espionage activities in Yemeni territorial waters as part of American military support” for Israel, the Huthis said in a statement.

The United States rushed military support to Israel and bolstered American forces in the region after Hamas militants carried out a shock cross-border attack from Gaza on October 7 that Israeli officials say killed more than 1,400 people.

Israel’s military responded with a relentless air, land and naval assault on Gaza that the territory’s health ministry says has left more than 10,500 people dead, sparking widespread anger in the region.

The Huthis have targeted Israel on multiple occasions in recent weeks, and the US Navy intercepted several missiles fired by the Huthis last month.

Israeli air strikes killed three pro-Iran fighters on Wednesday as they hit sites belonging to the powerful Lebanese Hezbollah group near the Syrian capital Damascus, a war monitor said.

Israel has struck Syria several times in the past month as regional tensions simmer over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

“Three non-Syrian pro-Iran fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on farms and other sites belonging to Hezbollah near Akraba and Sayyida Zeinab,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

Akraba houses a military airport, the monitor said, more than 10 kilometres from Damascus International Airport.

Israel also struck Syrian air defence sites in the country’s southern Sweida province, said the monitor with a network of sources inside Syria.

Syrian state media said Israeli air strikes had hit military sites in southern Syria, causing material damage.

“At approximately 22:50 pm today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack from the direction of Baalbek in Lebanon, targeting some military points in the southern region, causing some material losses,” official news agency SANA said, quoting a military source.

On October 7, Hamas militants attacked Israel and, according to Israeli officials, killed about 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and seized 239 hostages.

Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip which, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, has killed more than 10,500 people, also mostly civilians.

Last month, Israeli strikes had put Syria’s two main airports in Damascus and Aleppo out of service several times in two weeks.

During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, primarily targeting Hezbollah fighters and other Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it won’t allow arch-foe Iran, which backs President Bashar al-Assad’s government, to expand its presence there.