Saudi-led forces tell Yemenis to leave Old Saada district

People ride on a motorcycle as they pass by a police headquarters destroyed by a Saudi-led air strike in Yemen's northwestern city of Saada.

Reuters/Cairo

Saudi-led forces dropped leaflets on Friday asking residents of the Old Saada district in Saada province to leave, the state television channel Al Ekhbariya said.

In a phone interview with the station, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri, said a message had been delivered to Yemenis through various media outlets to stay away, for their safety, from areas where Houthi fighters were concentrated.

Saada province is a stronghold of the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels.

Asseri also said that air strikes conducted by the coalition in Saada since Thursday had targeted those who had planned operations against Saudi Arabia and who were hiding in Saada province. 

Meanwhile, Iran rejected allegations it was interfering in Yemen by backing Shia rebels there, accusing Saudi Arabia of seeking to absolve itself of responsibility in the war-torn Arabian Peninsula country.

Riyadh's new Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on Thursday criticised what he called Iran's "negative" role in the Yemen conflict, and repeated claims Tehran was providing arms and funding to anti-government forces.

Iran has long denied sending weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen, with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei saying this week that forces fighting supporters of exiled Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi did not need military support from Tehran.

Iran's foreign ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham said allegations it was arming the Houthis "were nothing but efforts to put the blame on others based on repeated and unfounded analysis".

A Saudi-led coalition has been conducting air strikes on Yemen rebel positions since late March and there are growing calls for an end to its aerial campaign as the death toll mounts in the impoverished nation.

Riyadh proposed a five-day humanitarian ceasefire on Thursday, but later warned the Houthis had crossed a "red line" by targeting southern Saudi Arabia with cross-border shelling.