Explosion at Aden airport kills at least 22

An explosion at the airport in Aden on Wednesday killed at least 22 people and wounded 50, Yemeni security officials said.

The blast occurred shortly after an airplane carrying members of a newly formed Yemeni government Cabinet landed, The Associated Press reports. Yemeni Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik Saeed was on the plane, and tweeted that he and his Cabinet were safe. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Video from the airport shows bodies on the tarmac and thick smoke rising into the air. The government ministers were quickly driven to the Mashiq Palace in Aden, and security forces sealed the area. Yemeni officials said there was another explosion near the palace, but did not say if it happened before or after the Cabinet members arrived. Saeed called the explosions a "cowardly terrorist act" and part of a war on "the Yemeni state and our great people."

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Yemen has been in a state of civil war for several years, and the officials were coming back to Aden from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where they were sworn in last week after a deal was made between supporters of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the separatist Southern Transitional Council to reshuffle the Cabinet. Members of the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, including Hadi, have primarily been working from self-imposed exile in Riyadh.