US AI Targeting Tool Joins Saudi War in Yemen

Saudi Arabia is using a U.S.-provided AI-enabled targeting tool as Ansarallah's military pressure mounts in Yemen, according to a report by the Tehran Times. The system is designed to speed up the military process from detecting a possible target to ordering a strike. That faster “kill chain” puts the machinery of decision and force at the center of a war where civilians have already paid the price.

A faster kill chain

A September report by CNN, citing several unnamed American officials, said between 100 and 200 U.S. soldiers were in Saudi Arabia as part of a new joint force command. The personnel were helping Saudi officers use a tool that, CNN reported, lets them “see in real-time what is happening on the battlefield.” The Tehran Times report said the United States was providing intelligence as well as the AI-based system.

Officials described the Saudi system as similar to the Maven Smart System, or MSS, which the U.S. military has used while seeking targets in Iran, Iraq and Syria. MSS grew out of Project Maven, the U.S. military’s flagship artificial intelligence program, first launched in 2017. Analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington described the platform as one that “aggregates, organizes and visualizes vast streams of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data.”

The software analyzes information from sources such as live satellite feeds and drone cameras, identifies patterns, and labels possible targets. Those may include rocket launchers, tanks or suspicious vehicle convoys. The system is meant to shorten the time between spotting a potential target and deciding whether to strike. A faster process is not the same as a more reliable one.

The civilian cost of automation

A human is supposed to verify a target identified by the AI-assisted tool and decide how to respond, the report said. But that doesn't always happen. Among the sites MSS targeted in Iran on the first day of the war was a school. An American missile killed almost 200 people at a primary school in southern Iran, most of them children aged between seven and 12.

The report also noted technical limits. Ansarallah fighters use truck-mounted ballistic missiles and small drone swarms, moving through hills and canyons in rugged countryside. They may leave before an AI-assisted attack takes place. Changes in terrain, dust storms, high wind, snowfall, dense foliage and deliberately planted decoys can also reduce the system’s success rate. MSS is known to work best in relatively unpopulated areas, the report said.

Israel has also used AI-assisted targeting in its military campaign in Gaza. The Israeli system, known as the Gospel, or Habsora, is the closest to MSS in how it works. Israeli and British journalists and the recent documentary Naza have documented problems with such tools, including civilian casualties, the report said.

Analysts Frederic Wehrey and Andrew Bonney wrote for War on the Rocks that AI had improved commanders’ situational awareness, the speed of strikes and troop survivability in Gaza. They added that those benefits had been “overshadowed by mounting civilian deaths reportedly resulting from this technology's safeguards being loosened or eliminated.”

War’s machinery, not a way out

The latest escalation followed Saudi Arabia’s July 13 bombardment of Sanaa airport, which prevented a passenger plane carrying Ansarallah officials from landing there and forced it to land at Hodeidah International Airport. Ansarallah declared an “eye-for-eye reprisal” and began targeting Saudi facilities, including airports and oil infrastructure. It also targeted Saudi vessels in the Red Sea in response to the blockade of Yemen, which the article said had been in force for more than a decade.

The article said Saudi Arabia had sought help from numerous allies, including the United States. Media had reported that Donald Trump refused when Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman asked him to take direct military action against Ansarallah. Saudi, U.S. and other military campaigns against Ansarallah had all failed, the report said; Ansarallah’s latest campaign, which primarily began in September, had taken further control of Yemen’s coast.

The war had been comparatively calm after an informal ceasefire negotiated in 2022. Ansarallah has held large parts of northern and western Yemen since 2015, while the pro-Saudi government and other groups held territory across the south and east.

Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist based in Australia who has researched Israel’s AI-assisted technology, told DW: “I don't think there's much evidence at all that using an AI tool is going to make much difference on the ground, except for causing huge amounts of civilian casualties.” The weapons and data keep moving through military commands. The consequences land among people living under their reach.