A new UN envoy was looking to kickstart peace talks in Yemen as battles raged today between Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces a month after the launch of Saudi-led air strikes.
The Shiite Huthi rebels, who have overrun large parts of the country and forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee abroad, have demanded an end to the air war as a condition for UN-sponsored talks.
But the raids continued on Sunday, hitting the rebel-held presidential palace in Sanaa and anti-government positions in the main southern city of Aden, military sources and witnesses said.
Fighting also intensified in Marib province, east of the capital, where Sunni tribes and pro-Hadi fighters clashed with Huthis and allied forces.
A military official said the presidential complex in Sanaa was targeted as reinforcements were being prepared to send to oil-rich Marib.
The United Nations on Saturday confirmed Mauritanian diplomat Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed as the new special envoy to Yemen, replacing Moroccan Jamal Benomar who resigned last week following what diplomats described as sharp criticism of his performance by Gulf states.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed "will work closely with the members of the United Nations Security Council, the Gulf Cooperation Council, governments in the region and other partners, as well as the United Nations country team for Yemen," a UN statement said.
Former strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, who still holds sway over army units allied with the Shiite rebels, late Friday urged the Huthis to heed UN demands to withdraw from territory they have seized.
US Secretary of State John Kerry also called on anti-government forces to enter into political dialogue to end a conflict that the United Nations says has killed more than 1,000 people since late March.
But Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Huthis' political bureau, told AFP on Sunday that "dialogue cannot resume before the end of external aggression".
The fighting has raised fears that Yemen could become a front in a proxy war between Sunni-ruled Gulf monarchies and Shiite Iran.
Tehran rejects accusations that it armed the rebels and has presented a peace plan to the UN calling for a ceasefire and the formation of a unity government.
A US aircraft carrier headed to Yemeni waters last week to monitor an Iranian convoy that had raised suspicions. It redeployed on Friday after the convoy turned back, Pentagon officials said.
