At least 30 people were killed and eight others wounded in an attack on a crowded market in Yemen's southwestern Taiz province on Friday, Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported, as the country's government and Houthi group traded accusations over responsibility.
The channel said three Saudi airstrikes hit Al-Hadarah public market in Taiz's Al-Wazi'iyah district in the morning, when it was crowded with shoppers. The casualty toll remained preliminary as rescue teams continued searching through the rubble, it added.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea accused Saudi warplanes of carrying out the attack, warning that what he described as a "massacre" would not go unanswered.
However, local authorities in Taiz, affiliated with Yemen's internationally recognized government, blamed the Houthis for the attack, according to the government-run Saba news agency.
In a statement, the authorities denied that any airstrikes had been conducted in Al-Wazi'iyah district on Friday, accusing the Houthis of endangering populated areas through indiscriminate missile attacks. They called for an independent technical investigation to determine responsibility.
Separately, Sarea said in a statement posted on social media platform X that Saudi warplanes and missiles had launched 67 strikes across five Yemeni provinces over the past 24 hours.
The deadly incident comes amid intensifying fighting between the Houthis and government forces supported by the Saudi-led coalition, alongside airstrikes across Yemen and Houthi missile and drone attacks inside Saudi Arabia.
Yemen has been mired in conflict since late 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention in 2015 in support of the government.
30 killed, 8 wounded in Yemeni market attack amid dispute over responsibility
30 killed, 8 wounded in Yemeni market attack amid dispute over responsibility
An extraordinary wave of fake bomb threats targeting European aviation this week is unprecedented in recent years, but the continent's transport system has avoided a systemic collapse, according to Serbian aviation analyst Petar Vojinovic.
European aviation faced multiple rounds of bomb threats this week, affecting flights across several countries and prompting some aircraft to divert or land under military jet escort. All affected flights were searched and no explosives were found, with the threats ultimately confirmed to be false alerts.
The latest wave came on Friday, following a series of threats reported on Tuesday and Thursday, with more than 20 flights affected on Thursday alone.
Speaking to China Media Group (CMG), Vojinovic noted that no evidence currently links the wave of false reports to any specific group, calling the sudden surge unprecedented.
"As far as I know, [this] hasn't been happening like for years earlier because such a concentrated level of reports, fake reports, because they didn't actually find anything, is really extraordinary. It still wasn't connected particularly to any organization," he said.
Vojinovic explained that upon receiving a bomb threat, airlines must follow established security protocols to implement response measures. They cannot independently judge the authenticity of a threat, nor can they lower their vigilance level simply because it might be a false alarm.
Consequently, even though all such threats have turned out to be fake, the mandatory handling procedures still cause flight delays, disrupt airport operations, increase security screening costs, and lead to issues regarding passenger accommodation and compensation, he noted.
"So that creates a delay of several hours. When an airline operates a single aircraft, that aircraft is used on several routes on that day. So the ones that had to be diverted, they had to be checked. They are not available for the next flight. And all of that is still being done because that's the only way that you can check and that you can double check and that you can clear that everything is safe," Vojinovic said.
European aviation withstands unprecedented wave of fake bomb threats: expert
