Five dead after Houthis attack Yemeni presidential palace with missiles

Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, killing five people and injuring 16, authorities said.The attack was the first in the current conflict between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia on Aden’s Al-Maashiq palace, the seat of Yemen’s internationally recognised government.Yemen’s cabinet said the attack involved missiles and drones, and witnesses described hearing loud booms near the palace complex.Yemen’s prime minister and cabinet members were safe following the attack, information minister Moammar al-Eryani said.Health minister Qasim Buhaibeh said the casualties included guards and civilian employees caught up in what he described as the Houthi attack on the government’s official headquarters.Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said its fighters had bombed what he called the Saudi military operations headquarters in Aden as part of the group’s targeting of ‘Saudi reinforcements’.Tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have continued to escalate (Reuters)And the Houthi-run news agency SABA said the compound was run by Saudi officers and that there were weapons depots based there. The Independent could not verify the claims.Houthi fighters and their allies briefly seized al-Maashiq palace during a battle for Aden after the civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014.A Saudi-led military intervention the following year led to a bloody stalemate before a 2022 truce that held until this year.Fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces resumed last month as the Yemeni group restarted attacks on Saudi shipping around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and drove a lightning charge to claim territory around the coast.Only last week, government forces launched a campaign to recapture areas controlled by the Houthis, recovering ground near the key shipping artery.Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said that the Houthis had launched 20 attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh this month, killing 17 people and wounding 333 others. The airport is one of Saudi Arabia's main international aviation hubs.By securing a position overlooking the narrow Bab el-Mandeb strait, the Houthis have opened a second pressure point in the US war with Iran, further squeezing Saudi Arabia’s oil exports already diverted from the Strait of Hormuz.Iran has provided weapons, money and training to the Houthis, although Tehran has officially denied arming them in violation of a ⁠UN arms embargo.