Blast Rocks Yemen Hotel Housing PM

The Yemeni government returned from exile in Saudi Arabia and set up temporary headquarters in Aden’s al-Qasr hotel last month after Gulf Arab and Yemeni troops retook the major southern port city from Houthi forces.

Emirati and Saudi officials had blamed the Shiite Houthi rebels they are fighting in Yemen’s civil war for the attack.

Early on Tuesday, unknown assailants fired rocket propelled grenades in an Aden hotel that is housing Yemen’s internationally recognized government, Reuters has reported.

Rajeh Badi, spokesman for the Yemeni government, said it would remain in Aden to carry on its duties for the time being.

Yemeni Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and “many ministers were sleeping in the hotel”, Saadi said.

The statement said that any intentional attack against civilians is a serious violation of worldwide humanitarian law and should be independently investigated.

According to a senior government source, no government officials were hurt in the attack.

There were conflicting reports as to the cause of the blasts, which also hit two buildings used by United Arab Emirates forces backing Bahah’s government. The discrepancy could not be reconciled.

WAM said that four Emirati soldiers were among the dead and that several others were wounded.

Four UAE soldiers were among the dead, WAM said. It identified the armaments used in the assault as Russian-designed Katyusha rockets.

The Houthis confirmed losing control of the strait but continue to hold the capital of Sanaa and northern provinces near the Saudi border.

Bahah and several of his ministers returned to Aden on September 16, two months after Gulf-backed loyalist forces pushed Iran-backed rebels out of the city.

Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi fled Aden for Saudi Arabia in March as Houthis and their allies advanced on 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 the expulsion of Iranian-allied Houthi fighters in July. It has so far lost 67 soldiers in Yemen.

They were Ahmed Khamis Al Hammadi and Mohammed Khalfan Al Seyabi, from Abu Dhabi, Ali Khamis Al Ketbi, from Al Ain, and Yousef Salem Al Kaabi, from Fujairah. “Their role on the ground has been reduced so they resort to mines, ambushes and rockets”, he said on his official Twitter account. He added that the attack on the Aden hotel “reinforces our need to destroy the forces of rebellion and destruction. And it is close”.

The death toll from an air strike on a wedding party in Yemen has jumped to 131 making it in one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country’s long continuing war.