Saudi-led air strikes kill 10 people in central Yemen – officials

Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition killed 10 people in air raids in central Yemen on Friday, local officials said.

One air strike targeted the home of a retired army brigadier in the central city of Ibb, killing him and five members of his family, the officials said.

Four more people were killed in separate air strikes on military and security buildings in the city, the officials said.

The mountainous area of Ibb lies between the coast and the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa.

The Iranian-allied Houthis seized Sanaa last September in what they called a revolution against a corrupt government, then took over much of the country.

Yemeni government forces intend to launch an attempt to recapture Sanaa within two months. Steps are already under way to break the grip of Houthi fighters, the country’s exiled foreign minister told Reuters on Thursday.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi fled Aden, where he had sought refuge, for Riyadh in March. Arab countries led by Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia intervened in the conflict to push back what they see as spreading Iranian influence in their backyard.

The war has killed more than 4,300 people, many of them civilians, and spread disease and hunger in one of the Arab world’s poorest states.