Saudis strike rebels trying to take Yemeni port

Saudi-led warplanes carried out an intensive bombardment of Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Thursday after the Iran-backed insurgents ignored a short-lived reprieve and pressed their advance toward the strategic port city of Aden.

Reports from the southern gateway cities targeted by at least 20 airstrikes early Thursday portrayed an escalating humanitarian crisis, with civilian casualties mounting and the exodus of 150,000 people gaining momentum.

Explosions rocked the cities of Taizz and Ibb, at key crossroads between Sana, the capital, and Aden, as the Saudi warplanes struck suspected hide-outs and weapons caches of the Houthis.

Riyadh and its Arab Persian Gulf neighbors accuse Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran of arming the Houthis, members of the Shiite Muslim offshoot Zaidi sect. The Saudi government sees the Houthi insurgency that has taken over nine of Yemen’s 21 provinces as a proxy war waged by Tehran to spread Shiite influence in the region. About two-thirds of Yemenis are Sunni Muslims, the dominant sect in the Arabian Peninsula.

The chaos that drove Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi to flee the capital and proclaim Aden the temporary seat of power has killed at least 1,080 and injured 4,350 over the last four weeks, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator, Johannes van der Klaauw, said in a statement. He demanded that the warring parties cease air and other operations that are taking a disastrous toll on civilians.

In Sana, which the Houthi rebels have controlled for months, the charity Save the Children said damage from airstrikes and injuries to its personnel had compelled it to suspend operations. The main office in Sana was damaged by an airstrike Monday, the fourth facility of the relief group to be hit in the last month, the organization’s country director, Edward Santiago, told Yemen’s Saba news agency.

“Even stopping for a few days could cost lives, especially of children, with up to 850,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition in the poorest Arab country,” Santiago was quoted as saying. He said it was uncertain how long the shutdown would last.

Panicked foreign residents and workers have continued to besiege the last evacuation operations in Yemen. The Russian government sent two planes Wednesday to rescue 197 foreigners in Sana. They included 20 Americans “who became stranded in Yemen when the U.S. government announced it had no plans to organize an evacuation,” Russia Today TV reported.

Saudi Arabia had announced Tuesday that its month-old Operation Decisive Storm was ending and that the focus of counterinsurgency had shifted to negotiations and humanitarian assistance. But any suggested reprieve was shortlived, and Thursday’s airstrikes targeted Houthi bases and assembly points.