Yemen’s Houthis said they attacked a Saudi position in the city of Aden on Wednesday (October 21, 2026), with smoke seen rising near the airport, in the third attack in a week on the seat of power of Yemen’s Riyadh-backed government.
Later, the Houthis declared a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia and began hitting its ships, territory and oil facilities, before seizing government-held territory in Yemen along the Red Sea coastline in a lightning campaign.
“Our armed forces were able to target the Saudi enemy’s operations room in the Badr camp in Aden with a ballistic missile,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a statement. “The Houthis used missiles and drones to target a military base housing forces from the Saudi-led coalition at Al Rayyan airport,” said one of the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity. Saree said the group had targeted “military equipment transported by the Saudi enemy via military cargo planes to Al Rayyan airport”.
A day earlier, the Houthis launched a deadly missile attack on the presidential palace in Aden, hitting command centres located inside the Al-Maashiq presidential compound, which is used by government forces and the Saudi-led coalition. Saudi Arabia and the internationally recognised Yemeni government have come under sustained attack from the Iran-backed Houthis, shifting the focus of the wider Middle East war that erupted with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran in February. In response, the Saudi air force has been regularly targeting the Houthis in support of the Yemeni government.
