An attack on an airport in Yemen has killed at least 22 people shortly after members of the country’s new cabinet arrived, the latest blow from a country struggling to emerge from a devastating conflict.
The sound of explosions, followed by gunfire, shook the airport in Aden, sending people running on the runway, according to attack news reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The blasts came shortly after cabinet ministers in a Saudi-backed government landed in Riyadh. The government’s information minister said all cabinet members were safe from the attack. A deputy minister of public works was killed in the attack, officials said.
“The cowardly terrorist act, which targeted Aden Airport, is part of the war against the Yemeni state and our great people and will only deepen our resolve to carry out our duties,” said Maeen Abdulmalek Saeed, Prime Minister in the new government in a tweet.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni Interior Ministry said 22 people had been killed in the attack and more than 50 injured. The local branch of Doctors Without Borders, an international medical aid organization, said it was preparing for a “mass victim” event.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said one of his employees was killed in the attack, while two other people were not identified and three were injured.
People fled after an explosion on Wednesday at the airport in Aden, Yemen.
Photo:
/ Associated Press
The attack further shook Yemen, a country in the throes of a political and humanitarian crisis after years of war fueled in part by the clash of regional powers.
The country is currently divided between Houthi rebels aligned with Iran, which controls the capital Sana’a, and a number of other factions, including the Saudi-backed government. Other powers in the Middle East also have a hand in conflict, including the United Arab Emirates, which is allied with the separatist Southern Transitional Council.
The violence poses a challenge to the new sworn government on December 26, as part of a power-sharing agreement brokered by Saudi Arabia to end fighting between the country’s loyalists and southern separatists who are allied with the United Arab Emirates.
Camps backed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have clashed in recent years, further dividing Yemen into a multilateral conflict.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack, but Western officials and analysts said it was probably carried out by Houthi, who receive military support from Iran. Houthis denied involvement in the attack. The group also launched a specific strike at a military parade in Aden in August 2019, killing a senior Yemeni commander.
Yemen’s new foreign minister, Ahmad Awad bin Mubarak, has blamed the attack on Houthi rebels.
Western officials have not ruled out the possibility that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or the disgruntled factions in the southern separatist camp may have been responsible.
Various parties to the conflict also rushed quickly through mutual blame, with the Southern Transitional Separatist Council blaming Qatar and Turkey.
“The real concern that follows is that this attack divides the new government rather than unites it,” said Elana DeLozier, a Yemeni expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
“A houthi attack should unite the new government in defense of a common enemy, but if the governing parties cannot reach a united vision of guilt, it will instead arouse suspicion and fragment the new government from day one,” he said. she.
It was not clear what caused the explosions at the airport. Video footage broadcast by Sky News Arabia showed what appeared to be a rocket hitting the asphalt.
—Stephen Kalin contributed to this article.
Write to Jared Malsin at [email protected]
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