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What is Houthis’ New Al-Qaria Submersible Strike Drone and How Does It Operate

The Yemeni militia effectively shut the Red Sea down to Israeli and Western commercial shipping last November, using a combination of ballistic missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and drone boats. Now, the group has apparently added an explosive underwater drone to its arsenal.

Ansar Allah’s Media Office published footage over the weekend of what appears to be a new, torpedo-shaped submersible drone taking part in large-scale drills, with the vessel seen skimming the sea surface toward a stationary mock target ship and landing a direct hit, after which a surface drone boat sails in to finish the damaged vessel off.

What is known about it?

The new drone has been dubbed the Al-Qaria (lit. ‘The Great Calamity’ or ‘The Great Disaster’, an apparent reference to a Koranic verse on Judgement Day), and is operated via remote control, surveying its surroundings using a camera attached to extendable rod situated toward the top rear portion of the tube-shaped vessel.

Footage shows the drone making its way toward its target, occasionally rising to within centimeters of the surface – its camera briefly popping up to allow the vessel to get its bearings, before sinking back down again and continuing on its way.

The new drone’s small size (which judging by the footage is no longer than a few meters) and ability to submerge beneath the waves is expected to make it a serious potential headache for both merchant vessels and warships operating in local waters, with drone’s approach expected to require sonar to detect in night or low visibility conditions.

This combo image highlights differences between the new Houthi Al-Qaria submersible kamikaze drone and the Remus 600 AUV made by Kongsberg Maritime.

The underwater vehicle in the video featured a bright hornet’s jacket-style yellow and black color scheme, but presumably any combat-ready variants would feature colors closer to those of the marine environment to make detection and destruction even more difficult.

Israeli and Iranian media analyzing the new drone pointed out that it followed the Houthis’ reported capture of a US Navy Remus 600 underwater reconnaissance drone off the Yemeni coast in 2018.

The US-made UAV is designed for seafloor mapping, underwater surveying, search and recovery and mine countermeasure missions, and is 3.25 meters long, has a 32.4 cm diameter, a 240 kg weight, a mission endurance time of up to 70-hours, a 5-knot top speed and a 600-meter maximum depth.

Side-by-side comparisons show some superficial similarities between the Remus and the Al-Qaria, including the aforementioned bright yellow and black paint scheme and rearward mounted extendable scope. However, the Houthi design features a distinct propeller and fin stabilizer scheme, protective ring propeller housing, and a more hydrodynamic nose cone, indicating that the militia has either adapted the captured drone to account for local manufacturing capabilities, or built one entirely from scratch, merely using the US design as a point of reference.

The footage of the new drone was put online as the Houthis staged massive naval and ground-based drills designed “within the framework of preparation and readiness for any upcoming confrontation with Washington and its tools with Yemen,” according to a senior Yemeni military source quoted by al-Mayadeen.

“America and Britain must understand that they will not be spared from any adventure in Yemen and should learn from their previous naval and air failures,” the source urged, referring to recent reports that the Pentagon is considering ramping up its operations against the Houthis

The Yemeni militia’s increasingly sophisticated missile and drone capabilities have not gone unnoticed by adversaries, with the militia building and fielding a series of increasingly long-range and precise missiles and drones which can reach Israel and threaten US warships operating in the region.

Last week, a journal affiliated with the West Point military academy revealed that a Houthi missile had splashed down just 200 meters from the USS Eisenhower supercarrier during a deployment this summer. Earlier this year, a Houthi missile evaded two layers of defenses of the USS Gravely missile destroyer, forcing the ship to activate its Close-In Weapons Systems (CIWS) last line of defense to take the projectile down.

“The combination of wide-area surveillance, close-in target shadowing, and terminal guidance has allowed the Houthis to achieve some impressive feats of marksmanship,” the journal highlighted.

Launching a campaign of drone and missile attacks targeting Israel in October 2023 and following it up with a partial shutdown of the strategic Red Sea trade route a month later in solidarity with Gaza, the Houthis have vowed to continue their operations against Israel and its allies until Tel Aviv halts its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

The US and the UK began a campaign of bombings targeting the Houthis to try to “degrade” their capabilities in January, but have so far failed to accomplish their goal. Earlier this month, a report by Brown University’s Costs of War Project revealed that the US has spent over $5 billion on its deployments in the Middle East over the past year, including $2.4 billion in costs associated with the campaign against the Houthis.

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