Houthis attack Aden airport as fighting intensifies

Yemen's Houthis attacked Aden's international airport with ballistic mis-siles and explosive-laden drones on Wednesday, the country's Transport Ministry said, as fighting between the Iran-aligned group and Saudi-backed government forces intensified.
Battles have focused in recent days on areas around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a shipping route that has become more crucial for energy exports since the conflict between the US and Iran restricted trade through the Strait of Hormuz.
This week, Yemeni government forces with Saudi-led coalition air sup-port launched a counter-offensive to recapture strategic territory near the strait and around the town of Mocha that the Houthis had captured in September, but it is unclear if their advance will hold.
The fighting, a spillover from the wider US-Iran conflict, has revived a complex 12-year war in Yemen that led to one of the worst humanitarian crises globally and fragmented the Arab world's most impoverished country. The number of people displaced since the latest round of fighting began has risen to more than 200,000, the International Organi-zation for Migration said on Wednesday.

"People are running for their lives and finding nowhere safe to go," said IOM Director General Amy Pope, who called for more funding amid ris-ing needs for food and shelter. Both sides allege that hundreds of people have been killed in fighting, without providing details. The UN says three in four families are going hungry in parts of Yemen.
The Houthis have repeatedly targeted infrastructure including airports, oil refineries and pipelines in Saudi Arabia, a US ally.
On Wednesday, the Saudi-led coalition said it had intercepted and de-stroyed a Houthi ballistic missile north of the Saudi capital Riyadh. It said it was tracking the launch platform over Houthi-controlled Sanaa and would destroy it, but gave no details of casualties or damage.
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a statement that the group had targeted King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh with several drones. There was no immediate Saudi confirmation of an attack on the airport.