Saudi Arabia launches more airstrikes; 21 die as refugee camp is hit

Yemen's Shiite rebels and security forces loyal to the former president began a fresh offensive against the southern city of Aden on Monday, according to security officials.

They shelled the city with artillery and battled local militias as Saudi airstrikes continue to target rebel positions.

Aden, the economic center of this impoverished nation, was declared Yemen's provisional capital by embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi before he fled the country last week.

The rebels, known as Houthis, overran the capital, Sanaa, in September - eventually placing Hadi under house arrest and forcing him to flee the city. The Houthis are allied with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, forced out as part of the country's 2011 Arab Spring uprising, and have been joined by army and security forces loyal to Saleh. Officials said the combined force of Houthis and Saleh loyalists is positioned 30 kilometers east of Aden.

The rebels have used artillery barrages to target pro-Hadi militias known as the Popular Committees.

Arab coalition warplanes ramped up pressure on Shiite rebels in Yemen on Monday with a fifth night of airstrikes, as a Chinese naval flotilla evacuated citizens from the conflict-riven country.

The Saudi-led Sunni Arab coalition has vowed to keep up the raids until the Iranian-backed rebels abandon their insurrection against Hadi, who has fled to Riyadh.

Fighter jets roared in the skies above Sanaa from 9 pm until 5:30 am on Monday, an AFP correspondent reported.

Saudi Arabia is open to a meeting of all Yemeni political parties who are willing to preserve Yemen's security and stability, state news agency SPA quoted King Salman as saying in a statement on Monday.

Such a meeting must be "under the umbrella of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the framework of preserving legitimacy and rejecting (attempts) to turn against it", the statement said.

The conditions for the talks would include returning weapons to state authorities and not threatening the security of Yemen's neighbors, it added.

An airstrike hit the area of the Mazraq refugee camp in the northern Yemen district of Haradh on Monday, killing 21 people, humanitarian workers told Reuters.

AP - Reuters - AFP