{"id":837389,"date":"2026-10-07T21:40:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?p=837389"},"modified":"2026-10-07T22:18:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T02:18:46","slug":"houthi-missile-lands-near-aden-runway-minutes-before-a-cairo-flight-as-the-yemeni-govt-push-stalls-in-the-hills-above-bab-el-mandeb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/837389","title":{"rendered":"Houthi missile lands near Aden runway minutes before a Cairo flight as the Yemeni Gov’t push stalls in the hills above Bab el-Mandeb"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A damaged building at Aden International Airport, July 2017 (IOM, UN Migration, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n

Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles and drones at Aden International Airport on Wednesday, and one landed near the runway minutes before a flight from Cairo was due to land, the Yemeni gov’t said. The Saudi-backed government’s counteroffensive on the Red Sea coast has slowed in the hills of Dhubab above the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, close to the port of Djibouti, which handles most of Ethiopia’s trade.<\/p>\n

Yemen’s Transport Ministry said the Houthis targeted the runway and the passenger terminal with at least two ballistic missiles and several drones. “One of the missiles landed near the runway minutes before the Yemeni flight from Cairo was to land,” the ministry said, according to Al Jazeera, adding that the landing was canceled and the plane, Yemenia flight 603, was sent to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. The ministry said it evacuated the terminal and moved two Yemenia and Aden Airways aircraft away from the danger zone, and it warned that “this incident could easily have turned a civilian flight into a horrific humanitarian disaster.” No casualties were reported, according to The National, and local security authorities told Anadolu Agency that the situation was stable and that forces were at the “highest level of readiness.”<\/p>\n

The Houthis said they had fired ballistic missiles at “Saudi military supplies” that had arrived at the Badr camp near the airport, and they added, “We warn the enemy against using Aden civilian airport for any military purposes.” Their military spokesman, Yahya Saree, claimed that strikes on three Saudi military camps in the Jazan and Asir regions had killed and wounded dozens of Saudi soldiers and officers, a claim that could not be independently verified. He also said the group had attacked King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with several drones. Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authorities later said one person was killed and eight wounded in an attack on King Khalid International Airport and two were killed and 28 wounded in an attack on facilities at Abha airport, Reuters reported. The authorities said one of the attacks took place on Wednesday and the other on Tuesday, without saying which was which. The Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile north of Riyadh and another one launched toward the southwestern city of Khamis Mushait. The flight tracking service Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) wrote on X early on Wednesday, Saudi time, that flights to Riyadh were “holding away from the airfield,” and The National reported that traffic at King Khalid International Airport was halted for more than an hour.<\/p>\n

On the ground, Reuters reported that it was unclear whether the government’s advance would hold. On Monday the Yemeni Gov’t said its forces had taken Mokha, as Mereja reported on Tuesday, but Yemeni military officials on the ground and analysts told Reuters that the claim “had been premature.” Reuters said the fighting is now concentrated in the Dhubab district, which overlooks Bab el-Mandeb, where pro-government forces are trying to advance into the hills to the east of the coastal plain. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Tuesday that the group’s forces had repelled several attempts to advance toward Bab el-Mandeb, TASS reported. Yousef Mawry of Al Jazeera, reporting from Sanaa, described “all-out battles to take over the ground, the highlands and the mountains east of Bab al-Mandeb,” and said that “for the Yemeni government to take control of Mocha and the strategic bases and locations along the Red Sea coast, it first has to drive the Houthis off the mountains east of Mocha.” DW’s English service gave a more positive picture for the government, writing that the operation had driven the Houthis out of areas around the strait and Mokha.<\/p>\n

Eshraq Al Maqtari, Yemen’s Minister of Legal Affairs, wrote on X on Wednesday that Houthi shelling had killed six civilians and wounded 18 others, most of them women and children, The National reported. The Yemeni army said around 100 Houthi fighters were killed and 150 were wounded in Monday’s operations in Taiz, a figure that could not be independently verified, and Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the Presidential Leadership Council, said the operation aims to retake the capital, Sanaa, Anadolu reported. Pakistan and Turkey have also said they will send forces to Saudi Arabia, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a joint statement.<\/p>\n

On October 4, the UK Maritime Trade Operations center (UKMTO) said the crew of a tanker about 60 nautical miles south of Mokha had seen “multiple explosions in close proximity to the vessel,” although the crew was unharmed, and it advised ships to move with caution near Bab el-Mandeb. Martin Kelly of the security firm EOS Risk Group warned that the Houthis have in the past widened their choice of targets when fighting escalates, The Maritime Executive reported. The shipping publication Container News (@container_news) argued on Wednesday in an article titled “Why retaking the coast will not yet reopen Bab el-Mandeb” that the risk to shipping is set by missiles fired from far inland, which remain a threat even if government forces hold the shore. Reuters noted that the strait has become even more important for energy exports since the conflict between the United States and Iran restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia moves 90 to 95 percent of its trade through Djibouti, according to estimates cited by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies and Asia Times, and the port of Djibouti sits on the Gulf of Aden only a short distance from the strait, so fighting around Bab el-Mandeb touches the shipping lanes that serve it. In its economic update released on Tuesday, the World Bank listed Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping and the risk to remittances from the Gulf among the threats to Ethiopia’s economy, The Reporter Magazine reported. BBC Amharic, which covered the attack on Aden in its live page, also reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar spoke by phone on Tuesday with his Ethiopian counterpart, Gedion Timothewos (PhD), about the current situation in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

The Arabic-language account AMRO (@_amro_abdo_) asked on Wednesday whether accusations that Eritrea backs Tigrayan forces should become a pretext for a conflict with Asmara, warning that a regional war between the two countries “would be a catastrophe for everyone” and calling for an independent investigation, de-escalation and a return to dialogue.<\/p>\n

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