The Houthis just fired a missile at Aden airport again

So this is the third time the Houthis have hit Aden airport in 14 days.

Go back to 7 October. Houthi forces fired at least two ballistic missiles and several drones at the airport. One missile came down near the runway minutes before a flight from Cairo was due to land. That flight got diverted to Jeddah instead. Nobody was hurt.

Then 16 October. Two more Houthi missiles landed near the runway, this time about 500 metres from a Yemenia Airways jet getting ready to fly to Cairo. Moammar al-Eryani, Yemen's Information Minister, said the missiles came down about 100 metres from the centre of the runway. He called it a grave violation of international law. Again, nobody was hurt.

But the day before that one, on 15 October, Houthi missiles hit the Al-Maashiq presidential palace complex in Aden. Five people were killed. Sixteen were wounded.

So in under a week, the Houthis went from missing a runway by 100 metres to killing five people at the seat of Yemen's government. And now this.

Here's why Aden matters so much. The Houthis seized Sanaa, Yemen's capital, back in 2014. Ever since, Aden has been the seat of the internationally recognised government. So hitting Aden isn't just hitting a battlefield target. It's hitting the government itself.

And the whole war has gone loud again. Hans Grundberg, the UN's special envoy for Yemen, told the UN Security Council on 9 October that the country had slid back into full-scale war. Before that, fighting had been quiet for four years. Then the Houthis declared a naval blockade of Saudi ports and shipping through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait in July, and everything changed.

Saudi Arabia blames Iran for all of this. Rayed Krimly, Saudi Arabia's deputy minister for public diplomacy, says Iran encouraged the escalation. Iran denies it outright. Its foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baghaei, says Iran has nothing to do with Houthi military operations.

So what don't we know? Whether anyone was killed or hurt in today's strike. And whether the coalition's air defences even tried to stop the missile.

Yahya Saree says quote "it was a direct hit". Nobody else has confirmed that yet.