Yemen asks Security Council to condemn Houthi attack on Aden presidential palace

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ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s government asked the UN Security Council on Sunday to condemn Houthi attacks on civilians and state buildings, including a missile strike on the presidential palace in Aden.

The request came in two letters from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, the state news agency Saba reported.

The letters were addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and to the president of the Security Council for October.

Greece holds the Council presidency for the month. Its permanent representative to the United Nations, Aglaia Balta, chairs the body until the end of October.

Greece took over the Council presidency on Oct. 1, its second turn during its current term as an elected member, according to the Greek foreign ministry.

The account of the letters rests on Saba, which is run by the internationally recognised government. No independent confirmation of their contents has been published.

The ministry asked the Council to condemn attacks on government and service facilities, residential neighbourhoods, civilian sites and civilians, and to hold the Houthis accountable for the consequences, according to the agency.

It asked the Council to implement Resolutions 2140 and 2216 in full.

It also asked for practical steps to stop weapons, missiles, drones and their components reaching the group.

The letters centred on an attack on Oct. 15 on the al-Maashiq Presidential Palace in Aden, the seat of the government.

Five security personnel were killed and 16 others wounded, the ministry said.

That toll is corroborated outside Yemeni state media. Al Jazeera reported the same figures on the day of the attack, attributing them to Yemen’s health minister, and said the government described two of the dead as bodyguards.

The government said the prime minister and other officials were unhurt.

Yemen’s information minister, Moammar al-Eryani, said five missiles were used, according to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera, reporting from Sanaa, described strikes on the government’s headquarters as the first of their kind by the Houthis.

The ministry said targeting presidential and government headquarters was an escalation that threatened Yemen’s security and stability, Saba reported.

The letters also cited attacks on residential neighbourhoods and on gatherings of displaced people in Marib, attacks on civilians and residential areas in Taiz and Lahj, and repeated attacks on Aden International Airport, the agency said. It gave no dates for those incidents.

The Houthis have not responded publicly to the letters. The group disputes government accounts of its operations.

The Security Council issued a presidential statement on Oct. 15 condemning attacks on civilian and other facilities and assigning responsibility to Iran, the Yemeni outlet Yemen Monitor reported.

Resolution 2140, adopted in 2014, created the sanctions regime for Yemen and the panel of experts that monitors it. Resolution 2216, adopted in 2015 under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, imposed an arms embargo on Houthi leaders and demanded the group withdraw from areas it had seized.

Gulf states made a parallel appeal on Sunday.

The Gulf Cooperation Council Ministerial Council, meeting in Manama for its 168th session, called for the Houthis to be designated a terrorist organisation and for strict enforcement of the arms embargo, according to Saba and Yemen Monitor.

The Gulf statement also urged the Council to act on Resolution 2722, adopted in 2024 over attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

That session was chaired by Bahrain’s foreign minister, Abdullatif bin Rashid al-Zayani.

The council’s secretary-general, Jasem Mohamed Albudaiwi, said 7,000 ballistic missiles had targeted Gulf facilities since February, Al Arabiya English reported.

The spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Maj. Gen. Turki al-Maliki, said this month that King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh had been attacked at least 20 times in 11 days, and that attacks on airports, oil facilities and ports had killed 17 people and injured more than 300.

Al-Maliki said the group had obtained ballistic missiles from other countries in the region. The Houthis have not addressed that account.

Mohamad Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies told Al Jazeera that the coalition’s briefing was a response to military and security failures, and that missiles reaching their targets could damage the perception of Saudi deterrence. He said the Houthis also faced a reputational problem over attacks on civilian infrastructure.

Fighting has also intensified in Taiz, which the Houthis have besieged for years.

Pro-government forces said this month that they were repelling a Houthi attack on Dhubab airport in Taiz governorate. Control of the area bears on access to the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

Aid agencies say the violence in Taiz is pushing the local health system towards collapse. Yemen’s Ministry of Public Health warned this month of a humanitarian catastrophe in the governorate.

The United Nations humanitarian plan for Yemen, published in March, says more than 22 million people need assistance and 18.3 million are acutely food insecure.

It puts the number of children under five with acute malnutrition above 2.2 million, of whom 516,157 are severely malnourished, and the number of internally displaced people at 5.2 million. The plan seeks 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.

Aden has served as the seat of the internationally recognised government since 2015. The Presidential Leadership Council, which took over executive authority in 2022, is based in the city.