Saudi-led coalition air strikes kill 11 civilians, rebels report

SANAA, Yemen — Air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition in northern Yemen killed 11 civilians, including women and children, Yemen’s rebelrun news agency said Friday.

The overnight attack in the city of Saada, a stronghold of the Shiite rebels known as Houthis, came as Iran’s foreign minister dismissed claims from Saudi Arabia that his country had supplied Yemen’s rebels with missiles.

Secretary of State John Kerry, on a visit to Saudi Arabia the previous day, said he was “deeply troubled” over Saudi photographs showing Iranian-supplied missiles being positioned along the Saudi-Yemeni border. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said such statements were “baseless accusations.”

In Yemen, the SABA agency, which is under control of the Houthis, reported that two houses located in the district of Baqam in the city of Saada were destroyed by air strikes overnight.

Houthi supporters and activists posted photographs on social media showing lifeless bodies of children and charred remains in the aftermath on the attack.

On Thursday, the U.N. human rights chief, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, called for an international investigation into rights abuses and violence in Yemen’s civil war, insisting that a domestic panel set up to look into violations has not been up to the task.

Fighting escalated in March 2015 with the start of Saudi-led air strikes targeting the Houthis and their allies who are loyal to Yemen’s ousted president. Zeid’s office says an estimated 3,799 civilians have been killed since then. The U.N. and rights groups estimate at least 9,000 people overall have died. Some 3 million people have also been displaced inside the Arab world’s poorest country.