ADEN — Yemen's Houthi movement targeted Aden International Airport and the Al-Ma'ashiq Presidential Palace with ballistic missiles on Friday, October 30, the official spokesman for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Colonel Majid Al-Nuzili, said, in a new attack on vital infrastructure in the temporary capital, Aden. Arab News reported the same statement from the armed forces on Friday.

Source: Yemen Monitor

Local residents reported the launch of two missiles from Ibb and Al-Dhalea governorates toward Aden, after which three loud explosions were heard across the city, Yemen Monitor reported. Yonhap News, reporting the same attack, said ambulances entered the presidential palace complex immediately after the strike; the palace complex houses Yemeni government facilities and sites related to the Saudi-led coalition. Neither the government spokesman nor the other reports disclosed any casualty or damage figures, and none had been released in the first hours after the attack.

2 missilesReported by residents as launched from Ibb and Al-Dhalea toward Aden
3 explosionsHeard across Aden after the launches, residents said
6th attackFriday's airport strike follows what the government called the sixth attack of its kind on Aden airport in October
1,087 operationsGovernment forces' claimed operations against Houthi positions in recent hours — a government claim, not independently verified

The airport had only just reopened

Friday's strike came barely a day after flights resumed. Aden airport was shelled on Wednesday evening, October 28 — an attack the government said was carried out with several ballistic missiles and was the sixth of its kind during the month — and operations were suspended before the Ministry of Transport announced flights would resume on Thursday morning after emergency repairs to the targeted runway. The palace itself was hit earlier in October: in mid-October a missile attack on the palace complex killed five people and wounded 16, Yemeni health authorities reported at the time.

Colonel Al-Nuzili accused the Houthis of continuing to target Yemen's national infrastructure and resources, and argued that strikes on airports contradicted the movement's stated aim of ending the blockade on Yemen. Yemen's government has called on the UN Security Council to take deterrent and punitive measures to stop the repeated attacks on Aden airport, safeguard civilian facilities and aviation safety, and enforce the arms embargo on the group. The government spokesman also said government forces had carried out 1,087 operations against Houthi positions in recent hours as part of the 'Dawn of Yemen' campaign, using warplanes, drones and artillery — a figure reported by TASS and not independently verified.

Why Aden keeps taking fire

Aden is the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government, which Saudi Arabia backs, while the Iran-aligned Houthis control the capital, Sanaa, and much of northern and western Yemen. The Aden strikes land in the same escalation that has seen the Saudi-led coalition report intercepting Houthi drones and missiles over the Mecca, Medina, Riyadh and Eastern Province regions this week. What happens next turns on two unknowns: whether Friday's missiles caused casualties inside the palace complex or fresh damage at the airport, and whether the government and coalition answer with strikes of their own — the pattern after each of October's earlier Aden attacks.

Sources: Yemen Monitor, October 30, 2026 — armed forces spokesman Colonel Majid Al-Nuzili's statement, residents' reports and the October 28 airport attack; Arab News via Etleboro, October 30, 2026 — the armed forces' statement on the airport and palace targeting; Yonhap News via JKN, October 30, 2026 — ambulances at the palace complex and the mid-October palace attack toll; TASS via EGazette, October 30, 2026 — the government's 1,087-operations claim.