Houthi missiles strike Yemen presidential palace, killing five
Attack was the first on Aden’s Al-Maashiq palace in the latest fighting between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia
Guardian staff and agencies
Fri 16 Oct 2026 01.27
Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles at the presidential palace complex in the southern city of Aden on Thursday, killing five people, the government said, as the Saudi-led coalition listed dozens of Houthi attacks on Saudi infrastructure in recent weeks.
The attack was the first on Aden’s Al-Maashiq palace in the current conflict between the Iran-aligned Houthis and Saudi Arabia. The palace is the seat of Yemen’s Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government.
Yemen’s prime minister, Shaya al-Zindani, and cabinet members were safe following the attack, Yemeni information minister Moammar al-Eryani said. Witnesses told Reuters they heard loud booms near the palace. Yemen’s cabinet said the attack involved missiles and drones.
Food and fuel run low as besieged Yemeni city braces for Houthi breakthroughRead more
Yemen’s health minister, Qasim Buhaibeh, said five people were killed and 16 wounded in the attack, with casualties including guards and civilian employees.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said its fighters had bombed what he described as the Saudi military operations headquarters in Aden, as part of the group’s declared policy of targeting “Saudi reinforcements wherever they were located”.
Agence France-Presse reported that a Yemeni government minister said on condition of anonymity that the palace attack had hit a command centre for the Saudi-led coalition. The official added that the command centre was hit by three missiles, and the headquarters of the coalition forces at the presidential complex with two missiles, adding that there were Yemeni and Saudi casualties, without providing a specific toll.
Fighting has escalated between the Houthi rebels and a Saudi-led coalition as part of clashes linked to the US and Israeli war on Iran, and aid agencies have warned of rapidly worsening conditions in Yemen.
The clashes have complicated efforts to end the wider Iran war and further rattled global markets as Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s top oil exporters, faces repeated attacks. Regional aviation is affected, too, as the rebels have warned airlines about their use of Saudi airspace for attacks. Thousands of flights across the kingdom have been disrupted.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/15/houthi-missiles-strike-aden-yemen
Back in September of this year:
Saudi Arabia urged to reconcile with UAE to drive back Houthi separatists in Yemen
Relations between two countries soured in January when a UAE-backed force was defeated by Saudis
Patrick WintourTue 29 Sep 2026 17.52 BSTShare
Saudi Arabia is being urged to reconcile with the United Arab Emirates over Yemen as the price Riyadh must pay to form a military alliance capable of driving the Houthis back.
Relations between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen, where both had backed anti-Houthi forces, plummeted in January this year when a force with which the UAE had been aligned – the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) – was attacked and defeated by Saudi Arabia in a move intended to squash its attempt to recreate a separate southern state. The UAE subsequently in effect quit Yemen.
But the unexpected success in mid September of the Iran-aligned Houthis’ drive to the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait against pro-government forces has transformed the geopolitics of the region again. The push south defeated the previously UAE-backed National Resistance Forces led by Tareq Saleh, whose front rapidly collapsed.
The future role of the UAE in Yemen was discussed at a meeting in Abu Dhabi on Sunday attended by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the UAE president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and a group of other Arab states, including representatives of Saudi Arabia.
Netanyahu reportedly offered to help Saudi Arabia defeat the Houthis, an offer that Riyadh would probably find near impossible to accept, even though Donald Trump has failed to answer the Saudi call for US help in Yemen.
A further meeting to discuss Yemen took place on Tuesday in Riyadh between Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, the Saudi defence minister, and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE vice-president.
It is part of a range of signs from the two sides suggesting they may want to find a path to reconciliation, even if only on energy.
Following the Houthis’ push to the Bab al-Mandab strait, a chokepoint on Saudi oil exports, their forces are now trying to consolidate their gains and take the south-western city of Taiz.
“The Houthi forces are mounting simultaneous waves of attacks on the city, trying to exhaust the Taiz Axis force defending the city,” said Baraa Shiban, a Gulf and Yemen specialist at the defence thinktank Rusi who has just spent a week in Taiz. “The Houthis are pushed back, but then the next day they come again on a different front.
“Efforts are being made to try to end the rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and there may be some confidence-building measures. But the UAE has left Yemen, and it is unlikely that Riyadh would let them back in since they are aligned with the STC, and that would spell trouble … the UAE and Saudi Arabia are fundamentally on opposite sides.”
Russia and Houthi:
Russia’s Houthi Recruitment
In a detailed report published on November 25, the Financial Times revealed information about Russia’s recruitment of hundreds of Yemenis to fight in Ukraine, luring them with promises of high-paying jobs and even Russian citizenship.
According to the newspaper, the recruitment operations are led by a prominent Houthi political figure, using a company linked to the Houthis that deceived recruits with job offers in Russia.
Upon arrival, however, it became clear that they had been forcibly enlisted into the Russian military and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.
The Financial Times reviewed some of the recruitment contracts, finding that they were connected to a company founded by Houthi politician Abdulwali Abdo Hassan al-Jabri.
Registered in Salalah, Oman, the company is listed as a tourism and medical supply retailer.
Al-Jabri, a member of the Yemeni parliament and a brigadier general in the Houthi-aligned army, was among 174 Houthi leaders sentenced to death in absentia by a military court representing Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
On November 27, investigative researcher Lou Osborne from the Swiss Organization Impact stated that the contracts between Houthi mercenaries and the Russian army pass through the company of Houthi politician al-Jabri, who is “involved in the arms trade between Russia and the Houthis”
According to Osborne, some fighters are recruited in Jordan’s capital, Amman, while working in restaurants, with little to no actual military experience.
According to information from the British newspaper, recruitment operations began in July 2024.
While some of the fighters were experienced in combat, the majority had not received any formal training.
The report claims that many were deceived into traveling to Russia, where they unknowingly signed recruitment contracts they were unable to read.
The newspaper reported that it spoke to several Yemenis from a group of 200 individuals, who confirmed they were promised a $10,000 bonus and a monthly salary of $2,000 when they were asked to travel to Ukraine, along with the prospect of Russian citizenship in the end.
