Pemen’s Houthis fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the southern city ?of Aden on Thursday, killing two security guards, two government officials told Reuters.
Yemen’s prime minister and cabinet members who were at the Maashiq ?presidential palace complex were unharmed, Information Minister Moammar al-Eryani said, adding that the Houthis had fired five missiles at the complex.
The ?Houthi-run Saba News ?Agency, citing a military official, said the group had targeted a military operations headquarters run by Saudi officers at the complex, as well as weapons depots. Reuters could not ?independently verify the claims.
The Iran-aligned group’s military ?spokesperson, Yahya Saree, said the strike on what he described as a Saudi military operations headquarters in Aden was part of the group’s declared policy of “targeting Saudi military ?build-ups wherever they are.” Three witnesses had earlier told Reuters they heard loud booms in the vicinity of the palace.
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that it intercepted and destroyed a cruise missile over the Madina region in western Saudi Arabia.
Coalition spokesman Major General Turki al-Maliki announced the interception in a brief statement on X.
The statement did not identify who launched the missile or its intended target, and provided no details on possible casualties or damage.
It came amid intensified Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia, including strikes targeting airports and energy facilities. The coalition accused the Houthis of carrying out a drone attack on the Taibah electricity distribution station in Madina on September 29.
The attack knocked a transformer out of service but did not disrupt the electricity grid, according to al-Maliki. The facility supplies electricity to the Prophet’s Mosque, one of Islam’s holiest sites. Yemen’s Houthis said they did not carry out any attack on the Medina region Thursday, shortly after Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted a missile targeting the area of the holy city.
“The Yemeni armed forces confirm that they have not carried out any operation today targeting Saudi territory, and that the Saudi enemy’s claims of an attack on Medina are a shameless and brazen lie,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree wrote on X. The Yemeni army said on Thursday that its forces repelled an attack by the Houthi group on the strategic Jabal Han mountain west of Taiz city in southwestern Yemen.
In a statement, Colonel Abdul Basit al-Bahr, deputy head of the Moral Guidance Department at the army’s Taiz Military Axis, said army forces thwarted the Houthi attack on Jabal Han, west of Taiz, “after hours of the fiercest clashes and most intense fighting.”
He added that the attack was repelled after the Houthis had “set fire to (…) Jabal Han, the entire western front and residential neighbourhoods with shells and heavy artillery.”
Bahr did not provide details of casualties or material losses.
Separately, Al-Jumhuriya Channel reported that airstrikes destroyed communications network towers belonging to the Houthis in the Bani Bakkari area of Jabal Habashi district in Taiz governorate. The Houthi group had no immediate comment on the report. Jabal Han is considered one of the area’s most important strategic positions, overlooking Al-Dhabab road, the only vital route linking Taiz with Lahj governorate and, farther south, the interim capital Aden.
The Houthis have closed most roads leading to government-controlled areas in Taiz governorate, according to Yemeni human rights and humanitarian organisations. These organisations accuse the group of besieging Taiz city since 2015 and preventing aid convoys from reaching residents and people affected by the war. The Houthis deny the allegations.