UN staff were evacuated from Yemen's capital today after a third night of Saudi-led air strikes, as President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi urged his Arab allies to bomb Iranian-backed rebels into submission.
The impoverished and deeply tribal Arabian Peninsula state, on the front line of the US battle against Al-Qaeda, is the scene of the latest emerging proxy struggle between Middle East powers.
A Sunni Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies, is battling to avoid having a pro-Iran regime on its doorstep, as Shiite Huthi rebels tighten the noose around Hadi's southern stronghold Aden.
"I call for this operation to continue until this gang surrenders and withdraws from all locations it has occupied in every province," Hadi told an Arab League summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"I say to Iran's puppet and whoever is with him, you are the one who destroyed Yemen with your political immaturity," Hadi said.
Hadi later flew to Saudi Arabia with King Salman and does not plan to return to Yemen until "the situation settles," said Foreign Minister Riyad Yassin.
"The Huthis are trying to take it (Aden) by any means to impose a new reality on the ground before the summit ends," Yassin added.
Heavy coalition strikes shook the rebel-held capital for a third consecutive night until dawn today, residents said.
"It was an intense night of bombing and the windows shook," said a foreigner working for an international aid organisation in Sanaa.
More than 200 staff from the UN, foreign embassies and other organisations were evacuated by air, aid workers said.
The latest strikes apparently targeted mainly arms depots and other military facilities outside Sanaa, witnesses said.
Saudi Arabia says more than 10 countries have joined the coalition defending Hadi.
The Western-backed leader had gone into hiding earlier in the week as rebel forces bore down on Aden and a warplane attacked the presidential palace there.
He surfaced in Riyadh Thursday before heading to the Egypt summit.
At least 61 people have been killed and around 200 wounded in three days of fighting between Shiite rebels and anti-Huthi militia in Aden, the city's health department director Al-Kheder Lassouar said.
Nine charred bodies were pulled from an arms depot in a cave near the port city after a series of massive blasts, with the death toll expected to rise, he said.
