Latest / The President's Daily Brief / PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 14th, 2026: Houthis Target Saudi Air Base & Russia’s Drone Evolution

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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | September 14th, 2026: Houthis Target Saudi Air Base & Russia’s Drone Evolution · The President's Daily Brief

• 0:12
  It's Monday,
• 0:13
  the 14th of September.
• 0:14
  Welcome to the PDB
• 0:16
  afternoon bulletin.
• 0:17
  I'm Mike Baker,
• 0:17
  your eyes and ears on the world stage.
• 0:20
  Alright,
• 0:21
  let's get briefed.
• 0:22
  First up,
• 0:23
  our focus is on the Red Sea,
• 0:25
  where the Iranian-backed Houthis continue to
• 0:28
  aggressively target the Saudi kingdom.
• 0:30
  This time claiming a massive missile and drone attack
• 0:34
  on a major Saudi air base.
• 0:36
  Later in the show,
• 0:37
  we'll look at how Russia is turning cheap drones into increasingly
• 0:41
  capable weapons faster than Ukraine and the West can adapt.
• 0:46
  But first,
• 0:47
  today's afternoon spotlight.
• 0:49
  This morning
• 0:50
  we told you that the Houthis had seized a foothold inside the Bab al Mandeb Strait,
• 0:55
  putting the Iran-backed militia in a much stronger position
• 0:58
  to threaten Saudi shipping through the Red Sea.
• 1:01
  Well,
• 1:01
  less than 24 hours later,
• 1:03
  the situation has escalated again.
• 1:05
  The Houthis now say they launched dozens of missiles and drones at
• 1:09
  one of Saudi Arabia's most important military installations.
• 1:12
  According to the militia,
• 1:14
  the attack targeted King Khalid Air Base in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
• 1:18
  The Houthis claim they went after aircraft hangars,
• 1:21
  radar installations,
• 1:22
  ammunition depots,
• 1:23
  and
• 1:23
  other military facilities located at the base.
• 1:27
  Now Saudi Arabia has not confirmed that King Khalid Air Base was struck,
• 1:31
  but emergency alerts were activated Sunday in the surrounding area
• 1:35
  and several other cities across southern Saudi
• 1:37
  Arabia as the Houthi attack was underway,
• 1:41
  and that comes as their offensive along Yemen's
• 1:43
  Red Sea coast continues to gain ground.
• 1:46
  As noted in the morning PDB,
• 1:48
  Houthi fighters had captured Peiram Island in the Babo Mandeb waterway
• 1:53
  and were advancing toward the Hanish Islands farther north.
• 1:57
  They've now reportedly gained control of those islands.
• 2:00
  The Houthis have seized both greater and lesser Hanish,
• 2:03
  extending their control over another strategically
• 2:05
  important section of the Red Sea.
• 2:08
  Taken together,
• 2:08
  those gains give the militia positions along the Yemeni coast
• 2:12
  inside Bab al Mandeb and farther north along
• 2:14
  one of the world's busiest maritime corridors,
• 2:17
  and their advance is also bringing them closer to the US military presence
• 2:21
  across the Red Sea in Djibouti.
• 2:24
  But perhaps the most consequential development for
• 2:26
  Saudi Arabia is what we're now learning
• 2:28
  about the kingdom's damaged oil infrastructure.
• 2:31
  Last week drones launched from southern
• 2:34
  Iraq struck Saudi Arabia's east-west pipeline.
• 2:37
  That pipeline had become especially important because it allows the Saudis
• 2:41
  to move crude from the Persian Gulf side of the country
• 2:44
  to terminals on the Red Sea,
• 2:46
  bypassing the troubled Strait of Hormuz.
• 2:48
  With Iran already disrupting traffic through Hormuz,
• 2:51
  the pipeline had become Riyadh's primary alternative route.
• 2:55
  Houthi attacks over the past few days
• 2:57
  had forced Saudi Arabia to shut the pipeline down.
• 3:00
  Now we're learning that the damage
• 3:02
  may be far more serious than initially understood.
• 3:05
  Officials say repairs could take between 3 and 5 weeks.
• 3:09
  Before the attack,
• 3:10
  the pipeline had reportedly been moving around 4 million barrels of oil per day,
• 3:15
  and that's roughly 4% of global oil supply
• 3:18
  moving through a single piece of infrastructure
• 3:21
  that could now remain largely offline for weeks.
• 3:24
  So Saudi Arabia is facing pressure from virtually every direction.
• 3:28
  To the east,
• 3:29
  Iran continues to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz
• 3:32
  across the kingdom.
• 3:33
  Its backup pipeline has been knocked out by drones launched from an area of Iraq
• 3:38
  dominated by Iran-backed armed groups,
• 3:41
  and to the west,
• 3:42
  the Houthis are capturing islands along the Red Sea
• 3:45
  while launching missiles and drones at Saudi military targets.
• 3:49
  Riyadh has so far avoided a major military response.
• 3:53
  Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had asked President Trump
• 3:56
  for direct American military action against the Houthis.
• 4:00
  The president reportedly declined,
• 4:02
  although Washington has continued providing
• 4:04
  intelligence and targeting assistance.
• 4:06
  But the question now is how long Saudi Arabia can maintain that restraint
• 4:10
  if the attacks keep coming.
• 4:12
  Iran and its allies are putting increasing pressure on Saudi Arabia's military,
• 4:16
  its oil infrastructure,
• 4:18
  and both of the maritime routes that it relies on to reach the outside world.
• 4:22
  At some point,
• 4:23
  the Saudis will be forced to respond
• 4:26
  and to re-engage in a conflict with the Houthis that
• 4:29
  they've been trying to avoid for a few years now.
• 4:33
  Coming up next,
• 4:33
  we'll examine Russia's growing advantage in the weapons race,
• 4:37
  where inexpensive drones are evolving into one of the major threats to Ukraine.
• 4:41
  I'll be right back.
• 4:43
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• 4:43
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• 7:10
  Welcome back to the PDB
• 7:12
  afternoon bulletin.
• 7:13
  Throughout the war in Ukraine,
• 7:14
  I've talked about how quickly both sides adapt their weapons to the battlefield,
• 7:19
  but now Moscow is moving considerably faster,
• 7:22
  turning inexpensive weapons into a major problem for Ukraine and its allies.
• 7:27
  New reporting from the Wall Street Journal gives us a
• 7:30
  closer look at how the Kremlin is pulling this off.
• 7:33
  One of the best examples is Russia's Geron family of attack drones.
• 7:37
  They began as versions of Iran's Shihed drones,
• 7:40
  the relatively slow propeller-driven weapons Moscow's launched by
• 7:44
  the thousands against Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure.
• 7:48
  Early in the war.
• 7:49
  They were a serious problem,
• 7:50
  but eventually
• 7:51
  Kiev got better at stopping them.
• 7:53
  Ukraine poured resources into interceptor drones and electronic warfare
• 7:58
  specifically designed to hunt down these slower Shahed drones.
• 8:01
  So,
• 8:02
  well,
• 8:02
  Moscow adapted.
• 8:04
  Russian engineers steadily made the Garons faster and harder to disrupt,
• 8:08
  upgrading their navigation and communications
• 8:11
  while making them more resistant to Ukrainian electronic warfare.
• 8:14
  And that brings us to the Garon 5 model.
• 8:18
  This latest version of the drone
• 8:20
  uses a jet engine and looks considerably more like a
• 8:23
  missile than the Shads that Russia started the war with.
• 8:26
  The head of Droneec is a company that tracks drone threats.
• 8:30
  Described it as essentially a
• 8:31
  poor man's cruise missile,
• 8:33
  and that's a pretty good way to understand what Russia is doing here.
• 8:36
  Moscow is getting much of the speed and capability of a cruise missile
• 8:40
  without paying anything close to cruise missile prices.
• 8:43
  A Goran 5 is estimated to cost around $100,000.
• 8:48
  For context,
• 8:49
  an American Tomahawk missile costs more than $2 million.
• 8:53
  And Russia isn't stopping with the Garon.
• 8:55
  Moscow has also developed the Bondarol,
• 8:57
  that's a relatively inexpensive cruise missile
• 9:00
  estimated to cost around $100,000.
• 9:03
  And a crucial part of how Moscow is managing to adapt the weapons technology
• 9:08
  is down to China.
• 9:09
  According to Ukrainian assessments and military analysts examining wreckage,
• 9:13
  Russia is relying heavily on Chinese-made jet engines,
• 9:16
  navigation computers,
• 9:18
  and communications electronics.
• 9:20
  Ukraine and others say that that violates international sanctions.
• 9:23
  Well,
• 9:23
  I'm sure the Chinese government
• 9:25
  and Putin were completely unaware that
• 9:27
  they've been violating international sanctions.
• 9:30
  I'm sure that once they find out,
• 9:32
  they'll start to comply.
• 9:33
  The caveat here is that much of the Chinese equipment is considered dual use.
• 9:38
  Now the various components can have legitimate civilian applications,
• 9:41
  but can also be adapted for military use,
• 9:45
  and Moscow has become particularly good
• 9:48
  at exploiting that vulnerability.
• 9:50
  The journal reports that they've used off the shelf or dual use technology
• 9:54
  to build antennas resistant to electronic countermeasures
• 9:57
  and communications networks capable of functioning through Ukrainian jamming.
• 10:02
  But getting the technology is only part of Russia's advantage.
• 10:05
  Once Moscow finds a design that works,
• 10:08
  it moves quickly.
• 10:09
  Russian engineers develop a weapon,
• 10:11
  test it in combat,
• 10:12
  modify it based on what happens against Ukrainian defenses,
• 10:15
  and then they move successful designs into large scale production.
• 10:19
  That's where Ukraine
• 10:21
  struggles to keep up.
• 10:22
  Kiev has proven that it can innovate quickly.
• 10:25
  In fact,
• 10:25
  Ukraine developed one of the first effective jet-powered drones of the war.
• 10:30
  What Kiev doesn't have is Russia's industrial capacity,
• 10:33
  or the
• 10:34
  same ability to pour resources into production
• 10:37
  while planning years into the future.
• 10:39
  And Russia has maintained that advantage even as
• 10:42
  Ukrainian strikes increasingly target its wartime economy.
• 10:45
  Putin has reoriented much of that economy around his war,
• 10:49
  of course,
• 10:49
  pouring government money and state-backed financing into defense production
• 10:54
  on a scale that NATO democracies haven't attempted since World War II.
• 10:58
  Putin has turned Russia's economy into a wartime economy,
• 11:03
  full stop,
• 11:03
  which,
• 11:04
  as an aside,
• 11:05
  while that works during wartime,
• 11:07
  But it will create significant problems when or
• 11:09
  if Putin decides to end his military adventurism.
• 11:14
  Meanwhile,
• 11:14
  the US and its allies are still struggling with a different problem.
• 11:18
  Washington and its allies have struggled
• 11:20
  to increase production of critical weapons
• 11:23
  like Patriot interceptors
• 11:24
  and to move new military technology into mass production
• 11:28
  quickly enough.
• 11:29
  Western defense companies are already scrambling to develop new interceptors.
• 11:33
  NATO members have pledged more than $40 billion
• 11:36
  over five years toward counter drone capabilities,
• 11:39
  but Ukraine's experience does offer a warning
• 11:42
  because the threat that NATO is preparing for
• 11:44
  is not limited to the war in Ukraine.
• 11:47
  What Russia learns on the battlefield
• 11:50
  does not stay on the battlefield.
• 11:51
  It spreads well beyond.
• 11:53
  Moscow shares their military technology and battlefield
• 11:55
  lessons with Iran and North Korea,
• 11:57
  to some degree China,
• 11:59
  potentially spreading those innovations
• 12:01
  to other US adversaries.
• 12:03
  And that my friends,
• 12:04
  is the PDB
• 12:05
  afternoon bulletin for Monday,
• 12:07
  the 14th of September.
• 12:08
  Now,
• 12:08
  if you have any questions or comments,
• 12:09
  and I do hope you do,
• 12:11
  just reach out to me at PDB@tv.com.
• 12:14
  And of course to listen to the show ad-free,
• 12:16
  that's very,
• 12:17
  very doable.
• 12:18
  Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief
• 12:20
  by visiting PDBpremium.com.
• 12:23
  I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow.
• 12:25
  Until then,
• 12:26
  stay informed,
• 12:27
  stay safe,
• 12:29
  stay cool.
• 12:44
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