Sanaa (AFP) April 18, 2015- Intense bombing by a Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen Friday, three weeks into an air war against Iran-backed rebels.
Columns of smoke rose over an arms depot targeted by coalition warplanes east of the capital Sanaa, witnesses said.
The facility belonged to the elite Republican Guard which remains loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Renegade troops loyal to Saleh are allied with the Huthi rebels whose sweeping advance forced President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh last month.
Following heavy air raids overnight in the north, coalition aircraft also hit the presidential palace in the southern city of Taez, the witnesses said.
Air strikes on the southern capital Aden killed a rebel chief in his car, a military source said.
Thirty-six other people died in bombing and fighting around Aden and Taez.
In an April 1 interview with AFP, Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin, who is in exile with other government members in the Saudi capital, accused Saleh of making preparations to flee Yemen.
The Yemen conflict has sent tensions soaring between Saudi Arabia and Iran — the foremost Sunni and Shiite Muslim powers in the Middle East.