An explosion was heard in Yemen's southern city of Aden on Wednesday, and smoke was seen rising near the city's airport, a police official and an AFP journalist in the city said.
The police official, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said the blast was "caused by a Houthi missile". There was no immediate word in the first reports from the city on casualties or damage, and no immediate claim of responsibility.
The explosion comes as fighting intensifies between Yemen's government forces and the Iran-backed Houthi group. Government forces said on Tuesday they had carried out 744 strikes against Houthi military targets across several battlefronts over the previous 24 hours, as part of their ongoing "Dawn of Yemen" offensive.
The Houthis have been hitting back hard. A Houthi missile strike on a government military training camp in southern Yemen has killed 73 recruits and injured more than 200 others, a senior Yemeni government official said — one of the deadliest single strikes of the renewed fighting.
Wednesday's blast is the latest to shake Aden's airport this month. On Friday night, two Houthi ballistic missiles landed inside the airport grounds just as a Yemenia Airways flight was preparing to take off for Cairo; Information Minister Moammar Al-Eryani said the missiles fell about 500 metres from the aircraft, and officials reported no casualties. That was the second attack on the airport in 10 days, and it came a day after a Houthi strike on the palace complex in Aden killed at least five people.
Aden is the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government, and its airport is a lifeline for Yemenis travelling abroad for medical treatment, work and education. Officials have warned that the repeated attacks on the airport threaten civilian aviation and the passengers who depend on it.
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