Smoke rises after an attack by Houthi rebels. File
| Photo Credit: AP
Yemen’s Houthis said on Saturday (October 24, 2026) they attacked the southern city of Aden, the interim seat of the Saudi-backed government, after accusing Riyadh of killing 16 people in strikes on capital Sanaa and a Red Sea port city.
Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised Yemeni government have come under sustained attack from the Iran-backed Houthis, shifting the focus of the wider West Asia war that erupted with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February.
The Saudi-led coalition said earlier on Saturday (October 24) it had intercepted two missiles targeting Saudi cities Taif and Yanbu in the kingdom’s west, before explosions were heard in Aden, the home of the government that Riyadh supports in the years-long civil war.
The Houthis quickly claimed the attack, saying they targeted a naval base and military camp overseen by Saudi forces.
“Our armed forces targeted Saudi enemy concentrations at the so-called Al-Nasr camp and the naval base in Aden,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said.
The Houthis’ Al-Masirah outlet earlier reported a series of “Saudi enemy airstrikes” targeting Yemen’s capital Sanaa, including one on a house that killed at least four people and wounded several others.
A separate strike at a residential building for cement factory workers in the Sanaa governorate killed six women and one child and wounded three others, the broadcaster said.
It later reported “five people, the head of the family, two of his children and his two wives, have been martyred” in a strike on their home in the western port city of Hodeida, blaming it on Saudi Arabia.
Yemen’s civil war, pitting the Iran-backed Houthis against the Saudi-supported and internationally recognised government, had been dormant since a ceasefire in 2022, but erupted again in July as the wider West Asia war roiled the region.
Diplomats evacuated
Earlier, Saudi Arabia’s civil defence agency broadcast warnings of “potential danger” for four western regions, including Taif and Yanbu as well Mecca, home to Islam’s holiest city, and Yanbu.
The alerts were all rescinded minutes later.
Residents were instructed to “proceed to the nearest safe place” by the agency. It also repeated a legal warning against sharing images or information related to “countering missiles and drones”.
The Gulf kingdom has come under repeated attack from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis in recent weeks as part of the latter country’s revived civil war.
The group has targeted the kingdom’s oil infrastructure as well as its airports.
Yanbu is a major oil export hub on the Red Sea coast that has allowed Riyadh to bypass Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz for much of its crude exports.
An attack on Riyadh airport earlier this month killed 13 people and wounded dozens more, while this week the U.S. ordered non-essential embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, citing the Houthi threat.
Riyadh leads a military coalition that first intervened in the conflict, which has devastated Yemen and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, in 2015.
The dramatic escalation in Yemen, with the Houthis taking control of the entire Red Sea coast in a lightning offensive last month, has further destabilised the region and disrupted oil markets.
Egypt has suggested sending troops to help defend Saudi Arabia, while Britain and France have offered their forces to protect the Gulf kingdom.
Published – October 24, 2026 09:07 pm IST
