Houthi Missile Strikes Target Aden Airport as Saudi Arabia Intercepts Attack Near Riyadh

Yemen's internationally recognized government has accused Houthi forces of launching a coordinated missile and drone assault on Aden International Airport, the country's most important aviation hub outside rebel-held territory, in an attack that officials say came dangerously close to killing dozens of civilians.

According to a statement issued Wednesday by Yemen's Ministry of Transport, the Iran-backed Houthis fired at least two ballistic missiles and deployed several drones targeting both the runway and the passenger terminal at the airport in the southern port city. The ministry reported that one of the missiles struck near the runway just minutes before a Yemeni flight arriving from Cairo was scheduled to touch down.

Authorities said they immediately cancelled the landing of the Egypt-bound flight and redirected it to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as a precautionary measure to safeguard passengers and crew. The terminal building was also evacuated, and two aircraft were moved off the tarmac during the assault, according to the ministry's account.

"This incident could easily have turned a civilian flight into a horrific humanitarian disaster, claiming the lives of dozens of innocent people in an instant," the ministry warned in its statement, underscoring the severity of what officials characterized as a near-catastrophe at one of Yemen's few functioning international gateways.

Aden International Airport serves as the primary point of entry for the parts of Yemen not under Houthi control. The city has functioned as the temporary seat of Yemen's internationally recognized government since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, in 2014—a takeover that triggered more than a decade of devastating conflict and drew in a Saudi-led military coalition determined to restore the government's authority.

In a competing account, the Houthis claimed responsibility for targeting what they described as "Saudi military supplies" arriving at the Badr camp situated near the airport. The group asserted that its ballistic missiles were aimed at military assets rather than civilian infrastructure, a claim that could not be independently verified and that the Yemeni government has rejected in previous instances.

Separately, the Saudi-led coalition operating in Yemen announced that its air defenses had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile launched by the Houthis north of Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The interception marked another escalation in a series of long-range attacks that have increasingly targeted populated areas deep inside the kingdom.

Major-General Turki al-Maliki, the official spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition, stated in a social media post that coalition forces had been tracking the launch platform used in the attack through an intelligence system monitoring activity over Sanaa. He pledged that the platform would be destroyed, signaling that retaliatory strikes were likely to follow.

The Houthis had earlier claimed in statements issued Tuesday and continuing overnight into Wednesday that they had launched attacks targeting Saudi international airports in both Riyadh and Abha, a city in the kingdom's southwest near the Yemeni border. These assertions form part of an intensifying pattern of cross-border assaults that has raised alarm across the Gulf region.

The surge in hostilities comes against a backdrop of mounting regional tensions triggered by the broader US-Israel war on Iran, which has destabilized multiple fronts across the Middle East. The conflict has emboldened the Houthis and complicated diplomatic efforts to de-escalate Yemen's long-running civil war, which had already produced one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

In recent days, Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces have launched a counteroffensive aimed at retaking the Red Sea port of Mocha and strategic areas surrounding the Bab al-Mandeb strait, a narrow waterway through which a substantial portion of global maritime trade passes. Control of this chokepoint has been a central objective for both sides throughout the conflict.

Fierce fighting has concentrated in the southwestern province of Taiz, where government forces are seeking to dislodge Houthi fighters from mountainous terrain that overlooks key coastal positions. Al Jazeera's Yousef Mawry, reporting from Sanaa, described the situation as "all-out battles to take over the ground, the highlands and the mountains east of Bab al-Mandeb."

Mawry explained that the campaign represents "a battle to take over the strategic western part of Taiz, and whoever controls the wider vicinity will overlook the region and have dominant military control." He noted that for the Yemeni government to secure Mocha and the strategic bases along the Red Sea coast, it must first drive Houthi forces from the mountains east of the port city—a challenging military objective given the rugged terrain and the Houthis' entrenched defensive positions.

Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to bolster Saudi Arabia's defenses have accelerated. Pakistan and Turkiye agreed on Monday to activate "deterrence measures" under their mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia, committing to rapidly deploy forces to the Gulf kingdom to counter Houthi attacks. The agreement reflects growing regional coordination in response to the escalating threat posed by the Houthis' expanding missile and drone capabilities.

The latest strikes on Aden and Riyadh illustrate how Yemen's civil war has evolved into a broader regional confrontation, with civilian infrastructure increasingly caught in the crossfire. The targeting of a commercial airport moments before a passenger flight's arrival highlights the risks faced by ordinary Yemenis and travelers, even as international efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire remain stalled.