Warplanes pound rebel-held Sanaa

Oman hosts talks with international and regional parties to discuss aggression in Yemen in ‘an exchange of views’.

A fighter of the anti-Houthi Popular Resistance Committees stands on a truck during fighting with Houthi fighters near Yemen's northern city of Mareb on May 29. Reuters

SANAA // Warplanes from the Saudi Arabia-led coalition pounded rebel positions across Sanaa overnight, only hours after the UN envoy to Yemen arrived in the capital to discuss stalled Geneva peace talks, residents said on Saturday.

The escalation came as neighbouring Oman, which enjoys good relations with Tehran and is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) hosted representatives of the Houthi rebels and delegates from Iran.

Saudi Arabia has been leading an air war that has targeted the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen on a daily basis since March 26, barring a five-day humanitarian ceasefire this month.

Among the latest targets to be struck was a house of ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in his hometown of Sanhan, south of the capital.

The raids came after Mr Saleh said in an interview broadcast on Friday that he had rejected a Saudi Arabian offer of “millions of dollars” to oppose the Houthi rebels.

Mr Saleh was forced to resign in early 2012 after waging a bloody crackdown on a year of protests calling for an end to his three decades of iron-fisted rule.

His forces have been backing the Houthi rebels who seized Sanaa in September before fanning out across other parts of the country this year.

The interview was aired on the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen television channel whose presenter said he spoke from Sanaa.

But the former strongman no longer resides in his Sanhan house which has been targeted occasionally since the Saudi Arabia-led coalition launched its strikes.

The latest raids hit the rebel-held air force headquarters in Sanaa, arms depots in Sanhan and Dailami airbase, also in the capital, witnesses said.

They also targeted rebels in the eastern province of Mareb and the western region of Hodeidah.

The raids came only hours after UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed flew in to the Yemeni capital for talks with political parties.

“All Yemeni parties must return to dialogue,” he said upon his arrival Friday, quoted by sabanews.net.

A Geneva conference which had been due to take place on Thursday was postponed, in a fresh blow to UN efforts to end a conflict estimated to have killed almost 2,000 people.

In his interview, Mr Saleh renewed calls for talks in the Swiss city between Yemeni parties as well as Yemen and Saudi Arabia — which he accused of seeking to sow “sedition” in the war-torn country.

But “sooner or later we will hold talks with Saudi Arabia,” said the former president who himself belongs to the Iran-backed Houthis’ Zaydi offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Mr Saleh said the Geneva talks, which he himself had first proposed, should focus on “power transfer, choosing a new authority, and the return to elections,” as well as “condemning the Saudi aggression”.

Yemen’s government says it only take part once rebels withdrew from at least part of the territory they have seized, in line with a UN Security Council resolution.

While Mr Saleh indicated president Abdrabu Mansur Hadi’s rule “is over”, he insisted that “I will not accept power for myself or my son” Ahmed, who led the elite Republican Guard troops during his rule.

As for Iran, with which he denied having any direct contacts, Mr Saleh said the Shiite-dominated country “does not pose a threat to Yemen at all”.

Riyadh hosted talks on May 17 which were boycotted by the Houthis but attended by several figures from Mr Saleh’s General People’s Congress party.

But other talks were apparently being held in Oman, where a Houthi delegation was on Thursday.

The rebel-controlled sabanews.net quoted a Houthi spokesman as saying talks were continuing in the sultanate to discuss the “aggression on Yemen”, and that there was an “exchange of views and proposals with international and regional parties”.

The coalition has imposed a complete air and naval blockade on Yemen and has repeatedly declared that any movement into or out of the country could only take place with its consent.

Iran’s foreign minister reportedly held talks in Oman on Tuesday about ending the conflict.

And Mr Saleh said both the United States and Iran were also holding talks in the sultanate to discuss mediation between Riyadh and Tehran.

Oman is the only one of the six-state GCC that has not joined the coalition air strikes against its neighbour.

* Agence France-Presse