Houthis hit presidential palace in Aden

Tensions remain high across the Middle East after the Houthis carried out a deadly missile strike targeting the presidential palace in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, while Saudi Arabia listed dozens of recent Houthi assaults on its infrastructure and blamed Iran for the latest dramatic escalation of hostilities.

The attack was the first in the current conflict between the Houthi militia and Saudi Arabia on Aden's Al-Ma'ashiq palace, the seat of Yemen's Saudi-backed and internationally recognized government.

Yemen's cabinet said the attack involved missiles and drones. Authorities confirmed the prime minister and all cabinet members were unharmed, adding the attack killed five people and injured 16, including site security personnel and civilian staff members.

Houthi spokesman Yahya Saree said its fighters had bombed what he described as the Saudi military operations headquarters in Aden, as part of the group's declared policy of targeting "Saudi reinforcements wherever they were located".

In retaliation, the Yemeni government forces said they carried out 1,250 attacks in the past 24 hours against the Houthis as part of their campaign to recapture Houthi-held territory.

Civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014 when the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa, driving the government south. A Saudi-led military intervention the following year led to a bloody stalemate before a 2022 truce that held until this year.

Fighting between the Houthis and Saudi-backed forces resumed last month, and humanitarian agencies have warned that living conditions in Yemen are deteriorating rapidly.

With Saudi Arabia backing Yemen's government, the Houthis have launched repeated ballistic missile and drone attacks targeting Saudi airports, ports and oil installations. The campaign has turned the kingdom into a major pressure point in the wider regional conflict.

On Thursday, Saree, the Houthi spokesman, said that most of Saudi Arabia's airspace and airports are "unsafe", with exceptions for the holy airspace over Mecca and Medina.

Aviation data showed Saudi Arabia's aviation network remained severely disrupted on Friday, with almost half of all scheduled departures canceled or not operating.

On Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition said Houthi strikes on Riyadh's King Khalid International Airport left 17 people dead and 333 wounded between Oct 7 and 11, adding that the airport had been targeted 20 times this month and that the Oct 10 strike involved 10 drones along with missiles and other projectiles.

Riyadh on Thursday accused Iran of encouraging the escalation. "We think that the escalation by the Houthis at this latest stage of the conflict is encouraged by Iran," said Saudi Deputy Foreign Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly.

He said Saudi Arabia had reached out to the Houthis in recent weeks, but the group refused to meet in Oman.

Iran did not immediately respond to this accusation.

New front

The Yemen conflict represents a new front in the broader regional war that began after the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February. Tehran and Washington remain locked in a stalemate spanning nuclear disputes and security in the Strait of Hormuz.

In an interview on Thursday, US President Donald Trump said he was neither considering using a nuclear weapon against Iran nor putting US troops on the ground.

Even though Trump has stated he will avoid strikes on Iran ahead of the Nov 3 midterm elections, CNN reported on Thursday he is weighing use of the US military's largest non-nuclear bomb against Iran.

Earlier, Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, deputy for political affairs of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, likened the conflict with the US to a world war that could reshape the global order.

"The war carries consequences comparable to the two world wars and could alter the global balance of power," he told IRNA News Agency.

Agencies contributed to this story.