Ballistic projectiles fired by Houthi fighters struck the presidential palace compound in Aden on Thursday, killing two members of the security detail, while the Saudi-led coalition separately documented scores of attacks on infrastructure inside Saudi territory as the conflict continued to widen.
A strike on Aden's Al-Maashiq palace — the seat of the internationally recognised Yemeni administration, which operates with Saudi Arabian support — marked the first such assault on the compound since hostilities between Houthi forces and Saudi Arabia got under way. The fighting has been described as an extension of a broader regional conflict that took hold after military strikes involving the United States and Israel hit Iran in February, representing another front in hostilities that have since spread across the area.
Yemeni Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani confirmed that the prime minister and other cabinet members had not been harmed in the attack. People in the area told one broadcaster they detected a series of loud explosive sounds close to the palace grounds. Two security personnel lost their lives in the strike, according to sources who spoke with a prominent broadcaster, with the government's cabinet describing the assault as having involved both missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
Yahya Saree, speaking on behalf of Houthi forces, announced that an attack had been carried out against what the group identified as a Saudi military operations centre in Aden, framing the strike as consistent with their stated policy of pursuing Saudi reinforcements across various locations. The Houthi-affiliated SABA news agency supplemented that claim by reporting that the facility was staffed by Saudi officers and held stores of weapons.
Combat between Houthi forces and their Saudi-backed opponents flared again across Yemen over the past month, with humanitarian organisations raising alerts about a deteriorating situation on the ground. Territorial advances along the coastline near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — a chokepoint for vessels traversing global trade routes — came after pro-government troops mounted an offensive push into areas previously held by Houthi forces over the past week.
Residents of Taiz — Yemen's third-largest city, located northwest of Aden — describe a pattern of intensifying air and ground strikes alongside dwindling stocks of food and medicine, as Houthi fighters extend their grip over the territory encircling the city.
Armed conflict took hold in Yemen after Houthi forces moved on Sanaa in 2014, pushing the established government out of the capital and toward the country's south. Intervention by a Saudi-led coalition the following year drew the conflict into a prolonged stalemate, a deadlock that persisted until a truce arrangement negotiated in 2022 held across much of the period thereafter. Temporary control of al-Maashiq palace passed to Houthi-aligned combatants at one point during the struggle for Aden, though those forces pulled back not long after taking up positions there.
Ballistic missiles and drones have been directed by Houthi forces toward airports, ports, and oil infrastructure inside Saudi Arabia, a pattern that has unfolded alongside Saudi military support for government troops in the conflict. A statement from the coalition led by Saudi Arabia, released that Thursday, described what it characterised as Houthi attempts to strike dozens of those facilities.
A formal resolution from the governing council of the International Civil Aviation Organization — the United Nations' aviation standards body — placed on record its denunciation of strikes carried out against airports, aircraft, and related infrastructure on Saudi Arabian soil. A travel notice put out by Global Affairs Canada on Thursday advises people to reconsider trips to Saudi Arabia.
According to a statement from coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki, twenty separate strikes against King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh were attributed to Houthi forces over the course of the month, with the attacks leaving 17 people dead and 333 others injured. According to the coalition's statement, strikes on Abha airport — located in southwestern Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen — left three people dead and 28 others with injuries.
Maliki stated that the group came to possess ballistic missiles, drone aircraft, and speed boats rigged with explosives through support channelled from what he characterised as unnamed actors operating within the region. Allegations that Iran supplied the Houthis with weapons, funding, and military training have circulated widely, though the government in Tehran has consistently maintained that no such transfers took place and that it has not breached the UN arms embargo covering the group.
Alongside those remarks, Maliki reported that 127 storage depots and launch platforms holding weapons had been put out of action across Yemen's highland terrain, and he urged the Houthi forces to bring an end to operations directed at civilian populations and the infrastructure they rely on. Following that announcement, a Houthi military spokesperson put out an aviation notice stating that Saudi airspace and its airport infrastructure presented hazards to flight operations — though the notice carved out a specific exemption covering the airspace above Mecca and Medina.
A notice from the civil defence authority in Najran's southern region flagged a possible incoming threat before a follow-up statement confirmed the situation had been resolved. Two drones were reported brought down by the coalition — one over the city of Khamis Mushait in southwestern Saudi Arabia, with a second device having been aimed at the country's southern region before being neutralised.
