Click to see full-size image. (Sgt. Harley Jelis/Army National Guard)

Yemen’s Houthis (Ansar Allah) announced late on October 17 that they shot down a Saudi AH-64 Apache attack helicopter near the border with the kingdom’s southern province of Najran.

In a statement, Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree, the movement’s military spokesman, said the American-made helicopter had been targeting Houthi positions along the border.

“Our armed forces, with the help and grace of God, managed to shoot down an Apache belonging to the Saudi enemy opposite Najran while it was carrying out hostile actions against our forces’ positions along the border,” Saree said. “It was shot down with a suitable weapon.”

The Houthis operate a range of air defense systems, from man-portable weapons to interceptors and medium-range surface-to-air missiles.

The Apache is Saudi Arabia’s principal attack helicopter, with a modernized AH-64E estimated to cost about $52 million per helicopter according to recent U.S. Army procurement figures.

Open-source inventories list 22 Apaches with the Royal Saudi Land Forces and 12 others with the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

The announcement came just days after the Houthis said they had struck a Saudi Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet over Yemen’s Saada province. The group later released footage showing a missile hitting the jet during flight, supporting its claim.

Including the latest claim, the Houthis have announced 18 shootdowns since the start of the ongoing confrontation with Saudi Arabia. Aside from an American-made F-15SA fighter jet, all other warplanes shot down by the Houthis were combat drones.

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Illustrative image. (Egyptian Ministry of Defense)

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on October 17 called for an emergency parliamentary session to authorize a possible Egyptian intervention to defend Saudi Arabia if requested by the kingdom.

“I call on parliament to convene an emergency session to authorize us to take action to intervene in defense of Saudi Arabia, if we are asked to do so,” El-Sisi said at a graduation ceremony for military academy and college cadets.

“This move and this defense require approval from the Egyptian parliament,” he noted, stressing that Egypt was not seeking to join the war against Yemen’s Houthis.

“I am not speaking about attacking or waging war. We are seeking only to defend,” the Egyptian president added.

Egypt is the latest country to publicly signal support for Saudi Arabia as the kingdom faces escalating missile and drone attacks by the Houthis, who control much of Yemen.

El-Sisi said Cairo would take the necessary measures to protect Saudi Arabia, adding that it was “absolutely unacceptable” for the kingdom’s security and stability to be undermined.

Saudi Arabia has secured defensive military support from Pakistan and Turkey through the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, which the three countries agreed to activate on October 5. More recently, the kingdom also received defensive support from the United Kingdom and France.

The United States, for its part, has been providing more substantial military support to Saudi Arabia, including intelligence sharing, operational planning and assistance identifying Houthi targets, as well as weapons and air defense systems.

Still, Riyadh has so far failed to secure a publicly announced commitment from its allies to directly join its offensive against the Houthis inside Yemen.

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SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence

NOW hosted at southfront.press

Previously, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.org.

The .org domain name had been blocked by the US (NATO) (https://southfront.press/southfront-org-blocked-by-u-s-controlled-global-internet-supervisor/) globally, outlawed and without any explanation

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