Explosion Heard in Aden as Houthis Claim Missile Attack on Military Camp

A powerful explosion was heard in the city of Aden in southern Yemen on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, as the Houthi movement claimed a missile attack on a military site there. A police official said smoke was rising near the airport in Aden, which is controlled by Yemen's internationally recognised government, the authority that most of the world accepts as the country's legitimate government. Al Jazeera reported the explosion.

Al Jazeera's Maha Ali, reporting from Taiz, said the Houthis had targeted Aden airport with a ballistic missile, a type of guided rocket that flies a high arcing path. Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree, however, said the group had targeted the operation room of the Saudi-led military coalition at Badr Camp in Aden, also with a ballistic missile. He described the strike as precise and direct. The fighting has not been confined to one site.

The attack on Aden comes after a series of strikes in the city and elsewhere in the past two weeks. Reuters reported on 7 October that Houthis launched missiles at Aden airport as a flight was due to land, according to a government ministry, and that attacks on Saudi airports had killed three people as fighting intensified. On 15 October, Reuters reported that Saree said Houthi fighters had bombed what he described as the Saudi military operations headquarters in Aden. The same day, Reuters reported that missiles had hit the presidential palace complex in Aden, killing five people according to the government.

Reuters also reported on 20 October that the death toll from a Houthi attack on a training camp for Yemeni government security forces in Shabwa province had risen to 73.