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Strikes blamed on Houthis target Yemen presidential palace
Strikes blamed on Houthis target Yemen presidential palace
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Yemen's Houthis targeted the presidential palace in Aden on Friday with two missiles, a police official told AFP, hours after Saudi forces said they had intercepted an attack by the group on the Gulf kingdom.
Aden, the seat of Yemen's Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government, has been targeted repeatedly since Yemen's dormant civil war reignited in July.
Two eyewitnesses told AFP they saw ambulances entering the palace in Aden, a large compound made up of several buildings including facilities used by government and Saudi-led coalition forces, after the incident.
Shortly before, residents and an AFP journalist said they heard two blasts in the city.
The Houthis, who control the capital Sanaa to the north, most recently struck the perimeter of Aden's airport on Wednesday after saying they had targeted a naval base and a military camp last week.
The coalition, which is fighting the Iran-backed Houthis, said on Friday it had intercepted and destroyed a drone near the Saudi capital of Riyadh, as well as a missile fired towards the country's southern region.
In two posts on X, coalition spokesman Turki al-Malki said forces had destroyed the drone in Riyadh province as well as "a ballistic missile launched by the terrorist Houthi militia toward the southern region".
Earlier on Friday, the coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed a Houthi drone in the Mecca region, with the group denying it targeted Islam's holiest city.
"A drone launched by the terrorist Houthi militia has been intercepted and destroyed in the Mecca region," Malki wrote in a post on X.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree called the Saudi statement "a massive and egregious fabrication".
Hours later, Malki reported another drone interception, this time over the Medina region, home to Islam's second holiest city.
Yemen's war began in 2014, with Saudi Arabia entering the conflict in support of the government the following year.
A ceasefire in 2022 brought relative peace until this summer, when the conflict burst back into life.
More than a decade of warfare has created a humanitarian catastrophe in one of the world's poorest countries, which the UN estimates is home to 42 million people.
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This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
