Yemen’s Houthi air defences intercept Saudi warplanes over Jawf

The Houthi-allied Yemeni military spokesman announced on Twitter last night that the army’s air defences had managed to disrupt a combat formation of several warplanes of the US-backed Saudi-led coalition over the Al-Jawf province.

“Our air defences managed to confront a combat formation consisting of a number of enemy warplanes over the airspace of Hazm district of Jawf, using the Fater-1 surface-to-air missile defence system, forcing them to leave without carrying out any attack,” said Brigadier General Yahya Saree.

بفضل الله وتأييده تمكنت الدفاعات الجوية في تمام الساعة 01:05 ص من التصدي لطائرة حربية معادية في سماء مديرية الحزم- محافظة الجوف وأجبرتها على مغادرة الأجواء قبل تنفيذ أي أعمال عدائية..
تمت عملية التصدي بمنظومة فاطر1.

— العميد يحيى سريع (@army21ye) April 2, 2020

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Over the past few days, air defence systems have responded to several attempted air raids by coalition warplanes over Yemeni airspace, particularly over the Sanaa, Marib and Al-Jawf provinces, using the Fater-1 system, according the Yemen Press Agency.

The Fater-1 is a domestically manufactured long-range surface-to-air missile, which was unveiled in August of last year along with the Thaqib-1. Although it was first used in 2017 against coalition air forces. It has intercepted coalition warplanes on several occasions, most recently on 26 March over the Sirwah disctrict of the Marib province, which is currently under the control of the joint Houthi-army forces as they advance towards the city. It was also used a day later over the capital, however the coalition forces succeeded in carrying out several airstrikes on the city following the ballistic missile operation against Saudi on Sunday.

The Fater-1 is described as being modelled on the 3M9 missile used with the 2K12 surface-to-air system, which was originally developed by the Soviet Union and had been in the Yemeni military arsenal prior to the five-year-old conflict in the country.

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