Yemen's top diplomat lobbies Berlin for EU help as Taiz toll passes 30

Afrah al-Zouba, foreign minister of Yemen's internationally recognized government, sat down with Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Armin Laschet in Berlin on Friday. He pressed Germany and the European Union to ramp up backing for his government, and called for tighter maritime security cooperation to cut off what he described as Iranian arms shipments to the Houthis. Al-Zouba also condemned the Houthi siege of Taiz.

Laschet did not offer a blank check. According to Breaking The News, he raised concerns over human rights abuses and the threat Houthi activity poses to Red Sea shipping. The meeting lands as Western capitals weigh how deep to wade into a conflict that keeps bleeding into global trade lanes.

Meanwhile, the numbers out of Taiz are grim and disputed. More than 30 casualties were reported after an attack on a market in the governorate. Houthi-affiliated media pinned it on Saudi airstrikes, while local Yemeni authorities rejected that version and blamed the Houthis instead.

The Houthi-run Saba news agency filled in the details, saying three airstrikes by Saudi warplanes hit the Al-Hadhara livestock market in the Al-Wazi'iyah district while shoppers and traders packed the grounds. Saba cited a local source for the preliminary toll and gave no split between killed and wounded. Two days earlier, seven people died when a Saudi strike hit a home in the same region, per the same reporting.

The air war is running in both directions. The Saudi-led Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen said its defenses intercepted two ballistic missiles fired toward the Najran region on Friday. Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said on X that debris fell and damage was being assessed, a day after the coalition reported downing a missile aimed at Medina. Najran also got a temporary danger warning from Saudi Civil Defense and the National Early Warning Platform, followed quickly by an all-clear.

Further afield, Iranian army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia warned Friday that Tehran would target US sites without geographic limits if Washington attacked, and said the Strait of Hormuz would only reopen if the US accepts Iran's terms. He framed it as a repeat of a warning from Iran's Supreme Leader. What comes next hangs on whether the Berlin talks turn into money and hardware, and whether the Taiz market attack ever gets an independent accounting.