The Ansar Allah group announced that it had targeted a Saudi operations room in a camp near Aden Airport with a ballistic missile, on Wednesday, and denied carrying out any military operations towards Saudi Arabia during the day, after the Kingdom-led coalition announced the interception of five drones over the eastern region and the Medina region.
The group's military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said that the attack targeted a Saudi operations room in Badr Camp in Aden.
A police official had told Agence France-Presse that an explosion near the airport was caused by a missile fired by the group, while two other security sources said that the attack targeted a site belonging to the coalition forces near the airport. A journalist at the agency monitored smoke rising in the area.
This is the third attack on Aden within a week, according to Agence France-Presse, after two missiles fell inside the airport on Friday, and a missile attack targeted command centers inside the Al-Maasheq Presidential Palace complex on Thursday.
In Saudi Arabia, coalition spokesman Turki Al-Maliki announced the interception and destruction of five drones in the Eastern Province and the Medina region, without specifying who launched them.
For his part, the military spokesman for the Ansar Allah group denied launching any marches towards Medina, and said that the group did not carry out any military operations towards Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
The coalition did not specify the interception sites within the Medina region, which includes the holy city for Muslims, and the Ansar Allah group had pledged to avoid targeting it and Mecca.
In a new development, a police official and Agence France-Presse reported that an explosion and smoke rose near Aden Airport in southern Yemen, on Wednesday morning.
The death toll from the Shabwa attack has risen
In Yemen, the local authorities in Shabwa Governorate announced, on Tuesday, that the death toll from the attack that targeted a government forces camp the previous day had risen to 73 people, with the search continuing for 14 missing people.
The authorities reported that more than 200 people were injured, and said that the victims were new members of the Internal Security Forces who were receiving training.
The spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Majed Al-Nuzaili, said that the attack was carried out with three ballistic missiles. The Ansar Allah group claimed responsibility for the attack, and its military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said that it targeted gatherings that he described as belonging to Saudi Arabia in Camp Al-Alam.
In a separate incident, the group's Saba news agency reported that eight fishermen were killed on Tuesday in Saudi air strikes that targeted two fishing boats off the coast of Taiz Governorate. The available reports did not include a Saudi response to this story.
Taiz: UN warnings and conflicting narratives
The United Nations called for the immediate entry of aid and basic supplies into Taiz, and its High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said that the Ansar Allah group’s closure of the only supply route linking the city to Aden exposes civilians to grave danger.
The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that 12 hospitals in Taiz have enough fuel for only about four days, while the stock of 115 types of 127 essential medicines is sufficient for a week or less.
The Human Rights Office said it had verified the killing of 32 civilians, including 14 children and nine women, and the injury of 115 others in Taiz Governorate between August 1 and October 19. The United Nations announced that the number of displaced people across Yemen exceeded a quarter of a million people as of October 17.
According to the BBC's Media Monitoring Unit, the anti-group Al-Masdar Online website reported that a number of people were killed, including two women, and 14 others were injured, most of them children, in a bombing attributed to the group on residential neighborhoods in Taiz on Tuesday. The death toll remained unclear due to conflicting initial reports.
On the other hand, the group's "September 26" website quoted its local authority as saying that all ports under its control were open, and accused forces linked to the Islah Party of blocking the roads. The website also announced the group's control over most of Taiz Governorate, with the exception of areas in the city and other pockets.
The group published scenes it said were of clashes near Taiz. Reuters was able to verify the location of part of it, but was unable to verify the date of filming or the locations of the rest of the scenes.
Iranian mediation and economic repercussions
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an interview broadcast Tuesday that Tehran had not received a response from Saudi Arabia or the Ansar Allah group to its offer to facilitate dialogue to end the fighting.
