Long Range Attack on Saudi Oil Field Ends the War on Yemen
Saudis can not protect key economic assets from Houthis, they will have to deal or lose them
Today Saudi Arabia finally lost the war on Yemen. It has no defenses against new weapons the Houthis in Yemen acquired. These weapons threaten the Saudis economic lifelines. This today was the decisive attack:
Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry.
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The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their “biggest-ever” operation. He threatened more attacks would be coming.
Today’s attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range:
The field’s distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai’s busy international airport within their range.Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones, which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as well as enemy troops.
The attack conclusively demonstrates that the most important assets of the Saudis are now under threat. This economic threat comes on top of a seven percent budget deficit the IMF predicts for Saudi Arabia. Further Saudi bombing against the Houthi will now have very significant additional cost that might even endanger the viability of the Saudi state. The Houthi have clown prince Mohammad bin Salman by the balls and can squeeze those at will.
The drones and missiles the Houthi use are copies of Iranian designs assembled in Yemen with the help of Hizbullah experts from Lebanon. Four days ago a Houthi delegation visited Iran. During the visit Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the first time publicly admitted that the Houthi have Iran’s support:
“I declare my support for the resistance of Yemen’s believing men and women … Yemen’s people… will establish a strong government,” state TV quoted Khamenei as saying in a meeting with the visiting chief negotiator of the Houthi movement Mohammed Abdul-Salam.Khamenei, who held talks for the first time in Tehran with a senior Houthi representative, also called for “strong resistance against the Saudi-led plots to divide Yemen”, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
“A unified and coherent Yemen with sovereign integrity should be endorsed. Given Yemen’s religious and ethnic diversity, protecting Yemen’s integrity requires domestic dialogue,” he said, TV reported.
The visit in Tehran proved that the Houthi are no longer an unrecognized, isolated movement:
Officials from Iran, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, as well as Yemen’s Houthi Ansarullah movement, exchanged views about political resolution of the protracted war in the Arabian Peninsula country.The meeting was held at the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran on Saturday with delegations from Iran, Ansarullah and the four European countries in attendance.
The delegates at the meeting explained their respective governments’ views on the developments in Yemen, including political and battlefield developments as well as the humanitarian situation in the country.
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The delegates stressed the need for an immediate end to the war and described political means as the ultimate solution to the crisis.
The war on Yemen that MbS started in March 2015 long proved to be unwinnable. Now it is definitely lost. Neither the U.S. nor the Europeans will come to the Saudis help. There are no technological means to reasonably protect against such attacks. Poor Yemen defeated rich Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi side will have to agree to political peace negotiations. The Yemeni demand for reparation payments will be eye watering. But the Saudis will have no alternative but to cough up whatever the Houthi demand.
The UAE was smart to pull out of Yemen during the last months. Its war aim was to gain control of the port of Aden. Its alliance with southern Yemen separatist who now control the city guarantees that. How long they will be able to hold on to it when Khamenei rejects a division of Yemen remains to be seen.
Today’s attack has an even larger dimension than marking the end of the war on Yemen. That Iran supplied drones with 1,500 kilometer reach to its allies in Yemen means that its allies in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq have access to similar means.
Israel and Turkey will have to take that into consideration. U.S. bases along the Persian Gulf and in Afghanistan must likewise watch out. Iran has not only ballistic missiles to attack those bases but also drones against which U.S. missile and air defense systems are more or less useless. Only the UAE, which bought Russian Pantsir S-1 air defense systems on German MAN truck chassis(!), has some capabilities to take those drones down. The Pentagon would probably love to buy some of these.
It was the U.S. use of stealthy drones against Iran that gave it a chance to capture one and to analyze and clone it. Iran’s extensive drone program is indigenous and quite old but it benefited from technology the U.S. unintentionally provided.
All the wars the U.S. and its allies waged in the Middle East, against Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Lebanon (2006), Syria (2011), Iraq (2014) and Yemen (2015), ended up with unintentionally making Iran and its allies stronger.
There is a lesson to learn from that. But it is doubtful that the borg in Washington DC has the ability to understand it.
Source: Moon of Alabama
[…] Long Range Attack on Saudi Oil Field Ends the War on Yemen 1 har lest innlegget i dag. Innlegget er lest totalt 1 ganger. […]
Yahooo! Yes Yes Yes, Hooray Yes Yes Yes. Yahooo!
What’s Really going on>>>???
Google and Research “7 Muslim countries take down in five years planned by the PNAC, exposed by General Wesley Clark for the “Greater Israel Project,” in which IRAN is the final Muslim country obstacle in the way!” Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somolia, Yemen, etc..
This vile and evil plan was designed by PNAC “long before 9/11.” And in the plan, get this now… the plan included a “false flag” attack on the United States of America to draw it into battle and assist in taking down the 7 Muslim countries, so Israel would NOT have to spend one dime… or spill any blood of their sons and daughters to achieve their Goal!
Now this part is VERY important… Look and see who are the members of PNAC? Please be sitting down when you find out…
“The Tail (Zionist Gov) has been Wagging the Dog (USA Gov)for very long time!” And a Dog (USA) who chases his tail (Zionist) very seldom, if ever, NEVER, catches on to the Tail (Zionist)! Or realizes the Tail (Zionist) has been wagging the Dog (USA)! Until it’s way too late!
In order to see…
Close your Eyes… So you Can See!
And Avoid the “MainShitMedia Noise” that is hiding Truth!
“We Seeee You!” Face Down… Mask Off!
You are absolutely correct! The US does not understand – nor does not want to admit- that they can do nothing to help their pal, MBS…and they shouldn’t be able to either…
that internal fighting was none of Washington’s business …and interesting to note in article that Poor Yemen trounced Rich Saudis!! A true David and Goliath story if there ever was one….The US had better get going on the alternative fuel that is available from scientists – and would not cost an arm and a leg to supply – or for the consumer to purchase! It is time to give up on the archaic use of oil for Everything….
interesting how the leadership role in the area is passing to IR.
no more caliphate dreams in turkey?
the anti-semitic khazar golem are doing a bit more head banging these days, i would think. counting the days…
and “step n’ fetchit” bolton has lost another round, perennial loser that he is.
world is wobbling a bit differently these days.
Everyone,especially the US, seems to forget that it was Iranian technology, ( Magrav technology ) developed by Mehran Keshe, that was used to cripple the USS COOK a few years back. . Iranian scientists are at the forefront of, not only anti-gravity technology, but plasma technology as well and I’ll not be the least surprised if Iran has some novel and very innovative new “weapons” to welcome America and Israel, if they’re foolish enough to strike for war !
An interesting claim since all reports about the USS Donald Cook incident say it was Russian SU-24’s that approached the destroyer on two separate occasions (2014, 2016). Only marginal news sources like Infowars, indicate that the Destroyers capability -may- have been disabled in the 2014 incident. (Even RT.com doesn’t report it.)
I’m not disputing the fact that Russian Su-24’s were involved, all I said was, it was Iranian technology. Because every news source, ( and I’m not talking about the MSM comics that print CIA prepared and vetted rubbish ), doesn’t publish something, that doesn’t automatically mean it didn’t happen. I do remember reading it from several different sources at the time.
Gee, leave out all the important information about what you “really mean” and then make a baseless claim that cannot be verified and don’t provide any support for that information. It should be easy, but perhaps you would just rather make stuff up and see who bites.
If you don’t know how to carry out research for yourself, then I can’t help you. I was simply stating facts about Iranian technology. You stated “leave out all the important information about what you “really mean”….if you know the important information that I left out, then logically, there’s no need for me to include it ! In your infinite wisdom, tell me what I’ve fabricated ?
Sure, I declare the moon is made out of Green Cheese. Look it up on Google. I swear to you it is there. If you don’t know how to find the information your the one who’s stupid. Why should I give you references to back up my claims.
Mostly, people who refuse to provide links to back up stuff like you are claiming are trying to con others. And considering that your original post was extremely misleading, well, you’re conning me.
Only misleading to uneducated people, or to people unable to do research…. I’ll terminate this conversation because my tolerance threshold is extremely low for the brainwashed of this earth
I do hope the writer is correct in his optimism. I always cheer for the little guy, especially when the enemy is as ruthless and bloody as Saudi Arabia, a country run by an almost gothic horror character, someone with no claim on our sympathies, but embraced and praised by some of the ugliest officials of the United States and Israel.
It has been a stunning achievement just that the Houthis could come to the point of threatening, from a considerable distance, important Saudi assets. They apparently have done so by copying Iranian technology.
To force the Saudis to deal and perhaps end the war would, at least a little bit, be comparable to the stunning victory of third-world Vietnam over the United States after its decade of bombing the hell out of their country and killing literally millions.
“The arrogance of power” is the phrase that comes to mind, and it is so fitting since it was the title of a book by Senator William Fulbright, a war critic, in the Vietnam era.
The Iranians have achieved, on limited means, some remarkable things in military technology. A while back, they sent a missile to accurately strike some terrorists far away in Syria without hurting American troops based nearby who were undoubtedly covertly assisting them. We saw the world’s most costly and sophisticated drone (America’s RQ-4A) brought down this year from a high altitude at night, and without harming an accompanying manned American spy plane.
Those were demonstrations which had to impress the arrogant people in the Pentagon and perhaps even some of Trump’s fanatics with the fact that pressuring Iran militarily was not without genuine risks.
And of course, there was a hi-tech drone (America’s RQ-170) that Iran managed to hi-jack in 2011, using cyberwarfare to take control and land it. That gave them the opportunity to do some reverse engineering. At the time, America refused even to acknowledge the embarrassing truth, insisting the drone had been shot down, which would have damaged it beyond being useful.
But the Iranian claim was accurate. And now we have this simpler, but very effective drone technology from Iran which may just end the ugly Saudi War in Yemen.
I am reminded of the time of the Iranian Revolution, when United States’ embassy staff, before fleeing, shredded huge volumes of secret and incriminating documents, as is standard practice, documents covering Iranian affairs during the era of the Shah.
Teams of old sharp-eyed Iranian rug weavers were called in to do the seemingly impossible task of reassembling the documents from a gigantic pile of finely shredded trash. And they did it. So, Iran gained hard proof of America’s dirty dealings with the Shah.
Iran’s advances in missile and drone technology reflect something similar, determination and perseverance plus of course a big helping of native, sharp-eyed intelligence.
I just can’t help cheering for the little guy, and it is always satisfying to see arrogance and bullying brought low.
The part of the story that I like is when Yemen demands a certain (to be named) amount of $ reparation they will receive from the Saudis for their ill thought out and very evil invasion…
Yemeni have gone Steampunk. Combing Low Tech Drones with High Tech Stealth. Pretty ingenious really. Like the bee attacking the armored knight. The knight has no defense once the bee gets past the visor.
I respectfully disagree with the statements about this being over. The Saudis will acquire a few more AWACS for 24 hr operations. Those drone’s stealth ability is not transparent to top down radar over a known terrain. Lasers will quickly mark moving “Blank” spots over the terrain and small, fast and cheap missiles will home in.
This has demonstrated a hole in the American force structure and is right this moment being “War Gamed” on how to over come it.