Aden Airport Warning: Ministry Reports Two Missile Strikes

The Aden airport warning came amid two reported missile strikes at Aden International Airport on Wednesday. Yemen’s Transport Ministry said the facility was hit at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.; Reuters, The Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse (AFP) described blasts but differed on whether they came before or after the Houthi evacuation notice. The government attributed the strikes to the Houthis. A Houthi spokesman said a Saudi military cargo plane was carrying weapons, a claim not independently verified.

What is confirmed

Saba News Agency, Yemen’s state news agency, published the Transport Ministry’s account on Oct. 28. According to Saba, the ministry said ballistic missiles targeted the airport twice on Wednesday, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., bringing its count of attacks in recent days to six. It held the Houthis responsible and said the incidents disrupted civilian travel and humanitarian work. The statement did not give a casualty total or describe what the missiles struck.

Reuters reported that Yemeni government forces said the airport attack caused civilian injuries and material damage. Two Transport Ministry officials told Reuters that air traffic stopped after the strike. Residents told the agency they heard an explosion near the airport. An aid source told Reuters that some United Nations staff left shortly before the attack and that no one was hurt, without specifying the scope of that account. The International Organization for Migration separately said its personnel travelling through Aden were safe and accounted for. Neither report gave a general civilian casualty total.

An AP reporter in Aden witnessed explosions that shattered windows at the airport building and nearby homes after Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree urged people there to evacuate. AP reported that the airport was deserted afterward, and a security official said flights from Cairo and Mumbai were diverted to Seiyun Airport while a Cairo-bound flight was canceled. These are AP’s reported observations and source accounts, not a full damage survey.

AFP quoted a local police source who placed a Houthi missile inside the airport perimeter shortly before the evacuation call. The source said a Saudi military aircraft was at the airport but was not hit and took off shortly afterward. The claim that its cargo included weapons was not independently verified. The reporting differs on sequence. According to Reuters, residents heard explosions elsewhere in Aden before the warning, but its dispatch did not place the airport explosion relative to the notice. AP’s reporter described explosions after the warning, while AFP’s source put a missile inside the airport perimeter shortly before it. The accounts do not settle the chronology.

What the parties said

The Transport Ministry’s statement, carried by Saba, said the attacks “pose a direct threat to passengers, flight crews, airport staff, and civil aviation safety.” It also said the strikes disrupted civilian travel and humanitarian efforts, and blamed the Houthi movement. Saba is Yemen’s state news agency; its report is an official government account from a party to the conflict, not an independent investigation.

AFP’s account reproduces the Aden airport warning from Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree, posted on Telegram: “Our armed forces call on those present at Aden airport to immediately evacuate due to the presence of a military cargo plane belonging to the Saudi enemy transporting weapons to kill the sons of the Yemeni people.” The warning states the group’s reason for ordering an evacuation; it does not verify the aircraft’s cargo. Reuters said Saudi authorities had not commented in its report.

How the coverage splits

Reuters, whose dispatch was also republished by Yahoo News, calls the Houthis “Iran-aligned” and the government “internationally recognised, Saudi-backed.” Its headline leads with the strike after the evacuation warning and foregrounds the explosion, halted air traffic, airport access and aid workers. Reuters reports a government-force claim of civilian injuries and separately quotes an aid source whose account says no one was hurt, without clarifying the scope of that account. It also notes the Saudi cargo-plane claim and the absence of a Saudi response. Reuters is not a party to the conflict.

AP’s report, republished by ABC News, uses “Iran-backed Houthi rebels” and foregrounds the reporter’s account of explosions after the warning, followed by the empty airport and diverted or canceled flights. This version does not include the Transport Ministry’s civilian-injury claim or a casualty tally for Aden; it also does not establish the Saudi plane’s cargo. AP is not a party to the conflict.

AFP, published by L’Orient Today, leads with Saudi strikes in Houthi-held Jawf and places the Aden airport incident second. It calls the Houthis an “Iran-backed group,” then relies on a local police source for the missile-before-warning sequence and the report that the Saudi aircraft was not hit. Compared with AP, AFP omits the flight-diversion details; compared with Reuters, its headline foregrounds the Saudi attack on Jawf rather than airport disruption. AFP is not a party. Saba, by contrast, uses the government’s label “Houthi terrorist militia,” centers its accusation of responsibility and does not include the group’s account.

The record so far

The ministry’s dated statement attributes two Wednesday strikes to ballistic missiles and gives the times as 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. The record on the Aden airport warning and strikes remains divided: Reuters carries a government-force claim of civilian injuries and material damage; AP reports broken windows and disrupted flights; AFP’s source says the Saudi aircraft was not struck. The Houthi warning and the cargo allegation are documented statements, not independent proof of who fired each missile, what was hit or what the aircraft carried.

This is a separate incident from GenZ NewZ’s Oct. 7 report on an earlier Aden airport attack, which focused on conflicting accounts of a Cairo flight. That earlier report does not establish the Oct. 28 sequence. The desk’s Taiz shelling report covered a different front and supplies no evidence about the airport strikes.