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Yemeni prime minister escapes injury in hotel rocket attack Yemeni rocket attacks kill 15 in Aden
(about 4 hours later)
A hotel in Yemen housing senior members of the official government has been hit by a rocket attack. Authorities in Yemen say three rockets have hit the port city of Aden, striking a hotel that houses officials from the country’s exiled government and two buildings used by Saudi-led coalition troops. They said at least 15 people have died.
Yemen’s prime minister, Khaled Bahah, escaped unharmed from the attack on the Qasr hotel in Aden, a minister said, while a local official told Agence France-Presse that several people had been killed and injured. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the Al Qasr hotel, though blame immediately fell on the Shia Houthi rebels that the coalition has been targeting since March.
Government spokesman Rajeh Badi said the rockets were fired from outside the city limits. All government ministers and the prime minister, Khaled Baheh, were safe and unhurt, he said, adding that the cabinet will hold an emergency meeting on the attack.
The United Arab Emirates’ official WAM news agency quoted unnamed “informed sources and witnesses” for the death toll and blamed Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies.
Members of the Gulf coalition have been providing security at the luxury Al Qasr hotel, and the Yemeni government officials’ presence there makes it a highly symbolic target for the rebels.
Related: The Yemen crisis is partly our fault. We can no longer facilitate this war | Trevor TimmRelated: The Yemen crisis is partly our fault. We can no longer facilitate this war | Trevor Timm
Bahah – also the country’s vice-president – has been installed along with ministers in Yemen’s second city after it was taken back from Shia Houthi rebels in mid-July. They had spent six months in exile in Saudi Arabia. Aside from local forces loyal to the exiled president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, the UAE has the most overt presence among coalition forces inside Yemen, with 4,000 troops on the ground, a senior Emirati commander said last month. It boasts military hardware including tanks, armoured fighting vehicles and attack helicopters.
President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi was believed to be out of the country. Witnesses said the hotel caught fire after the attack.
A security source and witnesses said the building had been hit by two rockets. Columns of smoke were rising from the building in the city’s western suburbs. Ambulances and civil defence forces attended the scene, witnesses said, adding that the rockets had struck the entrance of the hotel. Yemen has been embroiled in fighting that pits the Houthis and forces loyal to another former president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, against the Saudi-backed and internationally recognised government as well as southern separatists, local militias and Sunni Muslim extremists.
The United Arab Emirates condemned the attack and suggested it was carried out by Houthi rebels and their main local ally, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
The UAE foreign minister, Anwar Gargash , tweeted that the attack was further proof that the Houthis and Saleh were determined to destroy Yemen.
“The situation on the ground shows that they are waging a losing battle and that their role has been diminished to retreating on the ground and to try to inflict damage with mines, ambushes and rockets,” he said in another message.
A local newspaper, Aden al-Ghad, reported on its website that Bahah said after the attack he was determined to remain in the city.
The Qasr hotel has been the base of Hadi’s government since its gradual return from exile in Riyadh over recent weeks, after Houthi fighters were expelled in July.
The hotel has been guarded by troops from the UAE, one of the members of a Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting since March to end Houthi control of Yemen and restore Hadi to power in the capital, Sana’a.
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters