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Missile Hits Fledgling Yemen Gov’t Headquarters in Aden

At least 15 people were killed in the attack on the Al Qasr Hotel in Aden, according to WAM, the news agency for the United Arab Emirates.

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Yemeni Vice President and Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and other officials were unhurt, officials said.

Sunni Muslim extremist groups like Islamic State and AQAP oppose both the Houthi militants, a Shiite Muslim group, and the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni states, which rejects the radical form of Islamic government they want to impose.

The United Arab Emirates, a key member of the Saudi-led coalition battling Yemeni rebels, has troops deployed in Aden.

On Sept. 22, Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi chaired a cabinet meeting in Aden, the country’s temporary capital, after returning to Yemen from Saudi Arabia.

Ambulances and civil defence forces were on the scene, witnesses said, adding that the rockets had hit the entrance of the hotel.

Columns of black smoke could be seen rising from the targeted hotel and heavy armored vehicles and troopers were deployed around the area.

Hadi, himself a native of the formerly independent south, returned a few days later to Saudi Arabia where he has resided since the Houthis first advanced on Aden in March.

However, a report by Iranian news network Press TV said, citing a local newspaper, that Bahah and the other officials were evacuated unharmed by helicopter.

Air strikes and ground fighting have killed over 4,500 people in Yemen since Gulf Arab nations launched the military campaign in support of Hadi.

Rockets additionally struck the royal residence of Sheik Fareed Al Awlaqi, which Emirati troops and the Emirati Red Crescent had been utilizing, and additionally a coalition military camp in the al-Shab territory, the state possessed The National daily paper of Abu Dhabi reported.

Previously it only claimed attacks against Shiite mosques in Yemen.

He said one of the rockets hit the hotel’s main entrance and that a third rocket fired at the building had missed and landed in the sea.

It is unclear if any senior government officials were hurt in the attack.

Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani received members of Yemeni Supreme Revolutionary Council Tuesday morning to discuss Saudi Arabia’s crimes in the crisis-stricken country, Iran’s state TV broadcaster IRIB report said.

Hadi’s government has demanded the Houthis recognize its authority and withdraw from several cities, including Sanaa, which they seized in late 2014 and early 2015.

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“You’ll have the (southern) secessionists fighting al-Qaeda, and ISIL fighting al-Qaeda at the same time…It will be a complete nightmare scenario in the near future”.

Reports: Hotel housing Yemen PM hit by rocket