'Suicide Drones' Linked to Iran Have Made Their Way to Yemen Rebels, Photos Suggest

 An unmanned aerial vehicle that appeared at a weapons exhibition held earlier this year by the rebels ruling much of Yemen bears a striking resemblance to the kamikaze drone believed to have been used later in a deadly attack against an oil tanker off the coast of Oman, experts told Newsweek.

The system used in that operation and others like it have been linked by U.S. officials and other analysts to Iran, but experts also noted the near impossibility of drawing a direct link to any single source.

Mercer Street, a Liberia-flagged vessel operating on behalf of a company owned by an Israeli businessman, was hit by two back-to-back explosions in July while sailing through the Gulf of Oman. The latter blast killed the ship's captain, a Romanian national, along with its security officer, a citizen of the United Kingdom.

The incident sparked international outrage as the United States and Israel attributed the event to one-way drones built by Iran, which denied any involvement in the attacks. The top suspect is a model referred to by experts and foreign officials as "Shahed-136," a so-called "suicide drone" or loitering munition designed to detonate upon impact.

"We are confident, based on our assessment of the debris that was recovered from the M/T Mercer Street, that the system used in the attack was an Iranian Shahed-136 UAV and these are manufactured only in Iran," U.K. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Barbara Woodward told the U.N. Security Council last month.

But the unique "delta-wing"-style drone has also been identified elsewhere, notably in Yemen, where the Ansar Allah, or Houthi movement, possesses a very similar platform referred to as Waeed. Allegations that Iran supplies such weapons to Ansar Allah have been rejected by both parties.

For some time, however, the best publicly available images of the drone known as Shahed-136 emerged after an attempted Ansar Allah attack on Saudi-backed forces near Al-Alam in Yemen's Marab province last September. A photo from this incident was used by U.S. Central Command in its own assessment tying Iran to the Mercer Street attack.

The image also appeared in Newsweek's report in January that appeared to show such weapons deployed to Yemen's Al-Jawf province. The same day this report was published, Iran's Revolutionary Guard released video of a similar but unnamed drone being used to strike a surface-to-air missile system during a training exercise. Further delta-wing drone training footage was aired in May.

Now a new photo analysis shared with Newsweek by an expert who follows Iranian activities in the region and wished to remain anonymous outlines similarities between the drone downed in Marib and the Waeed on display at the Martyr Leader Exhibition held by Ansar Allah on March 11.

The expert estimated the Shahed-136 to have an effective range of around 2,000 to 2,200 kilometers, or approximately 1,240 to 1,370 miles.

A side-by-side analysis details similarities between the Waeed unmanned aerial vehicle displayed by Ansar Allah at the Martyr Leader Exhibition in Yemen on March 11, 2021 and the remains of a so-called "Shahed-136" unmanned aerial vehicle recovered after an attempted attack against Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces in Al-Alam, Marib province on September 23, 2020.

 

A segment of U.S. Central Command's assessment of the Mercer Street attack published August 6 compares open source materials of Iranian delta-wing variant unmanned aerial systems.

Photo credit: U.S. Central Command Public Affairs

Children look on as smoke billows above the residential area following airstrikes of the Saudi-led coalition targeting Ansar Allah-held military positions on March 7 in Sanaa, Yemen. Humanitarian concerns over the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen have led a number of lawmakers and even the White House itself to push for an to U.S. support for the war effort.

Source: https://www.newsweek.com/suicide-drones-linked-iran-have-made-their-way-yemen-rebels-photos-suggest-1628204