Blast After Flight Carrying Saudi-Backed ‘Cabinet’ Lands
Dozens Killed in Attack on Aden Airport
Dozens Killed in Attack on Aden Airport
SANAA, Yemen (Dispatches) — A large explosion struck the airport in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Wednesday, shortly after a plane carrying a new self-proclaimed cabinet backed by Saudi Arabia landed there, security officials said. At least 26 people were killed and 50 others were wounded in the blast.
The source of the explosion was not immediately clear and no group claimed responsibility for attacking the airport. No one on the government plane was hurt.
The southern port city of Aden has been mired in violence because of a rift between UAE-backed separatists and Saudi-backed forces loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
A footage from the scene showed members of the junta delegation disembarking as the blast shook the grounds. Many "ministers” rushed back inside the plane or ran down the stairs, seeking shelter.
Thick smoke rose into the air from near the terminal building. Officials at the scene said they saw bodies lying on the tarmac and elsewhere at the airport.
A delegate, who was also on the plane, told The Associated Press that he heard two explosions, suggesting they were drone attacks. The so-called prime minister in the Saudi-backed junta regime, Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, and the others were quickly whisked from the airport to Mashiq Palace in the city.
"It would have been a disaster if the plane was bombed,” he said, insisting the plane was the target of the attack as it was supposed to land earlier.
Saeed tweeted that he and his "cabinet” were safe and unhurt.
Muhammad al-Roubid, deputy head of Aden’s health office, told the AP that at least 16 people were killed in the explosion and 60 were wounded.
Images shared on social media from the scene showed rubble and broken glass strewn about near the airport building and at least two lifeless bodies, one of them charred, lying on the ground. In another image, a man was trying to help another man whose clothes were torn to get up from the ground.
UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said in a tweet that it was "a tragic reminder of the importance of bringing #Yemen urgently back on the path towards peace.”
The delegates were returning to Aden from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after being sworn in last week as part of a reshuffle following a deal with rival southern separatists. The former regime headed by Hadi has worked mostly from self-imposed exile in Riyadh during the years-long Saudi war on Yemen.
Hadi, in exile in Saudi Arabia, announced a "cabinet” reshuffle earlier this month.
The reshuffle was seen as a major step toward closing a dangerous rift between him and southern separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi-backed junta regime is at war with Houthis and their allies in the Yemeni army, who control most of northern Yemen as well as the country’s capital, Sanaa.
Naming a new junta regime was part of a power-sharing deal between the Saudi-backed Hadi and the Emirati-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council, an umbrella group of militias seeking to restore an independent southern Yemen, which existed from 1967 until unification in 1990.
The blast underscores the dangers facing Saudi allies in the port city, which was a scene of bloody fighting between Hadi’s forces and the UAE-backed separatists.
Last year, the Houthis fired a missile at a military parade of newly graduated fighters of a militia loyal to the UAE at a military base in Aden, killing dozens.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been engulfed in war since 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to wage war on the country and restore Hadi’s regime to power.
The Saudi war has killed more than 112,000, including thousands of civilians. The conflict also resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
SANAA, Yemen (Dispatches) — A large explosion struck the airport in the southern Yemeni city of Aden on Wednesday, shortly after a plane carrying a new self-proclaimed cabinet backed by Saudi Arabia landed there, security officials said. At least 26 people were killed and 50 others were wounded in the blast.
The source of the explosion was not immediately clear and no group claimed responsibility for attacking the airport. No one on the government plane was hurt.
The southern port city of Aden has been mired in violence because of a rift between UAE-backed separatists and Saudi-backed forces loyal to former Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi.
A footage from the scene showed members of the junta delegation disembarking as the blast shook the grounds. Many "ministers” rushed back inside the plane or ran down the stairs, seeking shelter.
Thick smoke rose into the air from near the terminal building. Officials at the scene said they saw bodies lying on the tarmac and elsewhere at the airport.
A delegate, who was also on the plane, told The Associated Press that he heard two explosions, suggesting they were drone attacks. The so-called prime minister in the Saudi-backed junta regime, Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed, and the others were quickly whisked from the airport to Mashiq Palace in the city.
"It would have been a disaster if the plane was bombed,” he said, insisting the plane was the target of the attack as it was supposed to land earlier.
Saeed tweeted that he and his "cabinet” were safe and unhurt.
Muhammad al-Roubid, deputy head of Aden’s health office, told the AP that at least 16 people were killed in the explosion and 60 were wounded.
Images shared on social media from the scene showed rubble and broken glass strewn about near the airport building and at least two lifeless bodies, one of them charred, lying on the ground. In another image, a man was trying to help another man whose clothes were torn to get up from the ground.
UN special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, said in a tweet that it was "a tragic reminder of the importance of bringing #Yemen urgently back on the path towards peace.”
The delegates were returning to Aden from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, after being sworn in last week as part of a reshuffle following a deal with rival southern separatists. The former regime headed by Hadi has worked mostly from self-imposed exile in Riyadh during the years-long Saudi war on Yemen.
Hadi, in exile in Saudi Arabia, announced a "cabinet” reshuffle earlier this month.
The reshuffle was seen as a major step toward closing a dangerous rift between him and southern separatists backed by the United Arab Emirates. The Saudi-backed junta regime is at war with Houthis and their allies in the Yemeni army, who control most of northern Yemen as well as the country’s capital, Sanaa.
Naming a new junta regime was part of a power-sharing deal between the Saudi-backed Hadi and the Emirati-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council, an umbrella group of militias seeking to restore an independent southern Yemen, which existed from 1967 until unification in 1990.
The blast underscores the dangers facing Saudi allies in the port city, which was a scene of bloody fighting between Hadi’s forces and the UAE-backed separatists.
Last year, the Houthis fired a missile at a military parade of newly graduated fighters of a militia loyal to the UAE at a military base in Aden, killing dozens.
Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, has been engulfed in war since 2015, when a Saudi-led military coalition intervened to wage war on the country and restore Hadi’s regime to power.
The Saudi war has killed more than 112,000, including thousands of civilians. The conflict also resulted in the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.