Breaking · Yemen

The Houthis just bombed the airport propping up Yemen's government

1 hour ago · 7 October 2026Share

Aden International Airport in July 2017. IOM - UN Migration · CC BY 3.0

Two missiles have just hit Aden International Airport in southern Yemen.

This is the airport that keeps Yemen's government connected to the outside world. It sits in Aden, the interim capital of the internationally recognised government.

Videos posted online show smoke and fire rising from the airport right now. Aden's security department says two missiles were fired. It says nobody was killed.

But a Houthi-aligned outlet, Al-Khabar Al-Yemeni, tells a different story. It says the strike hit the area where Saudi officers are based, and says it killed "a number of Saudi officers and leaders". No other outlet backs that up. And it directly contradicts Aden's own count of zero.

An unconfirmed OSINT report says the real targets were Task Force 22, a Saudi unit, and Saudi and Pakistani forces near Badr Camp, inside the airport. No wire service has confirmed that either.

So far, the Houthis, Saudi Arabia and Yemen's government have all said nothing.

That's everything we know.

The rest of this story is for members.

Why this matters

Aden airport is where this war's outside backers are based.

Five days ago, Pakistan sent four cargo planes of weapons to the Saudi-backed government here. Air defence systems. Light artillery. Drones and anti-drone gear.

Pakistani military advisers are already on the ground in Aden, working next to Saudi troops.

So this strike is different. Most Houthi missiles this war have hit the government. If the targets named in these reports are real, this one hit the foreign forces standing behind it.

And it lands as the whole war shifts.

Western and Arab officials have told Middle East Eye that Saudi Arabia is building up for a high-intensity campaign. Why? Because the Houthis now control the entire Red Sea coastline of Yemen.

Aden is being squeezed from two sides.

Fighting has been intense around Taiz. Six days ago, the Houthis blew up a bridge linking Taiz to Aden. Take Taiz, and the Houthis cut Aden off from the rest of government territory. Supply lines go with it.

But the government has had wins too. It retook the port city of Mocha and ground near the Bab al-Mandeb strait earlier this week. And the Saudi-led coalition has been bombing Houthi weapons stores in Hodeidah governorate.

Backing for the government side is growing as well.

Two days ago, Khalid bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Defence Minister, said the Makkah Alliance — Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey — would turn on "collective deterrence" against Houthi attacks. Pakistan and Turkey have both said they'll send troops and air defence systems to Saudi Arabia under that pact.

The human cost is already huge. The World Health Organization says the latest fighting has killed at least 959 people. More than 4,200 are wounded.

So three things nobody knows yet. Did the missiles really hit Task Force 22 and the Saudi and Pakistani forces, as these reports say? Were any Saudi officers actually killed, as the Houthi-aligned report says, against Aden's official zero? And will Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Yemen's government hit back?

Right now, smoke is the only thing anyone can confirm is coming out of Aden airport.

Comments

None yet

Already a member? Log in.

The Houthis just bombed the airport propping up Yemen's government

Comments

Related reporting

Yemen's government just retook the strait that carries the world's trade

Saudi Arabia just got hit by the widest Houthi strike in years

Saudi Arabia just activated a military pact with Pakistan and Turkey