Three airstrikes hit crowded Yemen livestock market, over 30 killed or wounded

Three airstrikes tore through the Al-Hadhara livestock market in Al-Wazi'iyah district, Taiz Governorate, on Friday, hitting while shoppers and animal traders packed the grounds. The Houthi-run Saba news agency reported the strike and put the toll at more than 30 civilians killed or wounded, attributing the attack to Saudi warplanes. The figure cited a local source and was preliminary — no breakdown between dead and injured was given. It is the latest bloodshed in a district that keeps getting hit.

Two days earlier, seven people were killed when Saudi military aircraft struck a home in the same region, according to Saba. That strike and Friday's market attack land back-to-back, deepening the toll on civilians in southwestern Yemen.

Across the border, the Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen said Friday its air defenses intercepted two ballistic missiles fired that day by what it called the "Houthi terrorist militia" toward the Najran region. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said in a post on X that debris fell from the interception and damage was being assessed. The coalition also said Thursday it downed a ballistic missile launched toward the Medina region.

The exchange fits a wider regional flare-up. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed Thursday it shot down a US MQM-170 reconnaissance drone over Qeshm Island, describing the takedown as the work of advanced electronic warfare systems, according to a Telegram post. Iranian Army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia said Friday that Tehran would target US sites "without geographic limits" if Washington attacked, repeating a warning from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.

In Najran province, Saudi civil defense and the National Early Warning Platform pushed out a temporary danger alert, then quickly followed with an all-clear. Officials told residents to keep following civil defense instructions and to avoid gathering in groups or taking photographs. The warnings came as authorities assessed fallout from the intercepted missiles.