Aden airport blasts kill 26 in attack 'directed at Yemen government'
At least 26 people have been killed andmore than 60 injured after an attack on the airport in the Yemeni city of Aden that appeared to be targeted at a plane carrying members of the newly formed government.
Three loud explosions and gunfire were heard on Wednesday afternoon as members of Yemen’s cabinet disembarked. Clouds of smoke billowed from the terminal building. Initial reports suggested the blasts had been caused by mortar shelling or missiles.
Another explosion hit close to the city’s heavily fortified Mashiq Palace, where cabinet members were taken following the incident at the airport. There were no immediate reports of injuries or fatalities from the second blast site.
Images from the airport shared on social media showed blood, rubble and broken glass strewn near the airport building and at least two bodies, one of them charred, on the ground. In another image a man was seen trying to help up another whose clothes were torn.
The attack marks a grim start for Yemen’s new unity government sworn in last week in Saudi Arabia. The reshuffle was designed to mend the dangerous rift between the internationally recognised government led by the president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), the organisation currently in charge of Aden.
Several civilians, journalists and government officials are believed to be among the dead. The International Committee of the Red Cross said three staff members had died in the attack. The total number of casualties is expected to rise.
Damage to Aden’s airport could leave Yemen with only one fully functioning airport for 28 million people in the blockaded country.
Naguib al-Awg, Yemen’s communication minister, who was on the government plane, told Associated Press he heard two explosions and suggested they were drone attacks.
“It would have been a disaster if the plane was bombed,” he said, insisting the government had been the target of the attack as the plane was supposed to have landed earlier.
All cabinet members, including the prime minister, Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, and the Saudi ambassador, Mohammed Said al-Jaber, were transferred safely to the interim capital’s presidential palace, Saudi media reported.
It was not immediately clear which of Yemen’s warring parties, among them al-Qaida, was responsible for the attack.
Last year Houthi rebels fired missiles on a military parade in Aden, killing dozens of people in an attack that inflamed tensions between the government and the STC, who accused each other of failing to share intelligence.
The Houthis were also responsible for a missile attack on an Aden hotel in 2015 targeting the then prime minister, Khaled Bahah, and members of his government.
Since the rebel group took over the capital, Sana’a, in 2014, the Yemeni government has worked mainly in exile from Saudi Arabia, where the plane was flying in from on Wednesday.
The information minister, Moammer al-Eryani, claimed in a post on Twitter that the Houthis were behind Wednesday’s attack, while in a televised address Saeed called it a “cowardly terrorist act” but refrained from blaming the rebels.
“The attack … is part of the war being waged against the Yemeni state and our great people, and it will only increase our determination to … restore the state and stability,” he said,vowing that the government was in Aden to stay.
A Houthi official, Muhammad alBukhaiti, denied responsibility in comments made to Al Jazeera television.
Yemen has been embroiled in a bitter civil war for six years that pits the Iran-backed Houthis against a coalition of Arab nations led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE and supported by the UK and US. The conflict has killed an estimated 112,000 people and led to widespread hunger and outbreaks of disease, creating what the UN terms the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The fighting took on a new dimension in 2017 after the formation of the STC, which is supported by the United Arab Emirates despite the objections of coalition partners in Riyadh. Battles between the government and the STC for control of south Yemen have plunged Aden in particular into unpredictable bouts of violence and complicated UN efforts in the overall peace process.
The new power-sharing cabinet was announced in December after more than a year of Saudi-mediated negotiations.
Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy to Yemen, wished “the cabinet strength in facing the difficult tasks ahead”. He said: “This unacceptable act of violence is a tragic reminder of the importance of bringing Yemen urgently back on the path towards peace.”