Khaled Bahah: Yemeni Prime Minister escapes after hotel hit in rocket attack

Yemeni security officials said three explosions hit the city, the Associated Press said.

They were also a blow for the Yemen government, which had only recently returned to Aden, a city that the coalition hoped would be safer for returning officials in the wake of the arrival of coalition ground forces, led by the U.A.E., said Katherine Zimmerman, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

Fawaz Hanbala, co-ordinator of the campaign supporting the United Arab Emirates, said the demonstrators took to street to thank all those who conducted Operation Decisive Storm that saved Yemen from the brutal, flagrant and wrongful aggression.

Salem Al Yazidi, a Yemeni fighter with a local militia allied with Hadi, described chaotic scenes when he rushed to aid the victims of the blast at the hotel.

At first it was thought that around 27 people had been killed in the air strike but on Tuesday a medical source at Maqbana hospital confirmed the number had risen to 131, including many women and children.

A government spokesperson said Prime Minister and Vice President Khaled Bahah escaped unharmed. None of the Cabinet members were hurt in the attack.

Government spokesman, Rajeh Badi told newsmen that the cause of the explosions at the hotel was “rockets”.

A guard at the building said a group of armed men in an armoured auto stormed the fence of the house and detonated the explosives. A few of them were injured. Those assaults hit the palace of Sheikh Fareed Al Awlaqi, which Emirati troops and the Emirati Red Crescent had been using, as well as a nearby coalition military camp, the state-owned The National newspaper of Abu Dhabi reported.

Information about what exploded, and who was responsible, varied.

A militant loyal to Yemen’s government looks as smoke billows from al-Qasr hotel after it was hi …

The report, titled ” Bombs fall from the sky day and night: Civilians under fire in northern Yemen” focuses on the plight of civilians in the rebel Shiite Huthi strongholds. But the targets have been Shiite mosques in Sanaa used by the Iran-backed Houthis. An ISIL affiliated group claimed responsibility, saying the bomb targeted Houthis preparing to go into battle.

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 26 to end Houthi control of Yemen and restore Hadi to power in the capital, Sanaa.

The Houthis have condemned the coalition for alleged war crimes.

The attacks in Aden on Tuesday are likely to be the biggest loss of life for the coalition since a Houthi missile attack on a base in Marib in September killed 52 Emirati troops.

Yemen’s war pits the Houthis and troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against forces fighting on the side of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Jefri made no specific reference to Monday’s incident but said Saudi Arabia had been “very, very careful, and the government has been declaring that they have been taking all measures to ensure that this is to the bare minimum possibility in this area”.