Houthi attack on presidential palace in Yemen’s Aden kills 4: govt sources

The Houthis carried out a missile attack on the Yemeni government’s presidential palace in the interim capital of Aden on Thursday, with government military sources reporting four killed.

Residents of the southern city reported hearing explosions on Thursday, while a journalist saw smoke rising from the site, which also serves as the headquarters of the internationally recognised government.

Three local police sources said on condition of anonymity that “Houthi missiles targeted the Al-Maashiq presidential palace”.

Government military sources later said four people were killed and 10 others wounded in the attack.

Media affiliated with the pro-Iran Houthis said they had targeted “the headquarters of military operations, led by Saudi officers, at the Al-Maashiq Palace in Aden, as well as weapons depots belonging to them”.

Government forces also said on social media Thursday that the Houthis had fired “several ballistic missiles” at the central city of Marib, which sits in a strategic oil-rich region.

Yemen’s long-running civil war flared back to life in July after the collapse of a years-long truce, with the Houthis going on to launch a lightning offensive that saw them seize swathes of strategic territory along the country’s Red Sea coast.

The group has also launched repeated missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi Arabia, which leads a military coalition that has been supporting the Yemeni government since 2015.

Saudi retaliatory strikes and a government counter-offensive have so far failed to reverse the recent gains made by the group, which already controlled much of the country’s most populated areas, including the capital Sanaa.