China's foreign ministry added its support on Tuesday to calls for a ceasefire in Yemen, after Russia and the Red Cross appealed for a military pause to allow humanitarian aid deliveries and the evacuation of civilians.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar said on Thursday they had decided to act to protect Yemen against what they called aggression by the Houhti militia, according to a joint statement by the five Gulf Arab countries.
Saudi troops clashed with Yemeni Houthi fighters on Tuesday in the heaviest exchange of cross-border fire since the start of a Saudi-led air offensive last week, while Yemen's foreign minister called for a rapid Arab intervention on the ground.
Warplanes from Saudi Arabia and Arab allies struck Shi'ite Muslim rebels fighting to oust Yemen's president on Thursday, a gamble by the world's top oil exporter to check Iranian influence in its backyard without direct military backing from Washington.
Saudi Arabia is moving heavy military equipment including artillery to areas near its border with Yemen, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, raising the risk that the Middle East’s top oil power will be drawn into the worsening Yemeni conflict.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi accused the Iranian-allied Houthi militia on Saturday of staging a coup against him and appealed to the United Nations for “urgent intervention”, even as the United States evacuated its remaining forces.
Opponents of Yemen's Houthi militia announced the formation of a national alliance on Saturday to restore the authority of the state, in a major shakeup of Yemen's political landscape.
Yemen's former president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi left his official residence after weeks of house arrest by the Houthi militia on Saturday and flew to his home town of Aden, witnesses and a political source said.
Forces loyal to Yemen's former president seized government buildings in the southern city of Aden on Monday after a five-hour battle, sources said, escalating a civil conflict that threatens to split the country in two.
Yemenis in the capital Sanaa and the central city of Taiz held the largest protests yet against a takeover by a Shi'ite Muslim militia group on Wednesday after the United States, Britain and France shut their embassies over security fears.
The leader of Yemen's Houthis who control the capital Sanaa said on Tuesday his group was seeking a peaceful transfer of power after the resignation of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, and urged all factions to work together to solve the crisis.
Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi resigned on Thursday, just days after Houthi rebels battled their way into his presidential palace, plunging the unstable Arab country deeper into chaos and depriving Washington of a key ally against al Qaeda.
Yemen's powerful Houthi movement fought artillery battles with the army near the presidential palace in Sanaa on Monday, surrounded the prime minister's residence and drew accusations they were mounting a coup.
Yemen's Houthi movement, which seized the capital Sanaa in September, on Saturday rejected a new power-sharing government that President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced on Friday, thwarting his efforts to end the country's political crisis.
Yemen's new Shi'ite Muslim powerbrokers sent fighters towards an al Qaeda stronghold on Wednesday, raising the possibility of clashes between the politically ascendant Houthi movement and the hardline Sunni Muslims of the militant network.
Yemen's president named the country's U.N. envoy as prime minister on Monday in a move welcomed by the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi group which controls the capital, signaling an easing in the country's prolonged political crisis.
Yemen's new Prime Minister Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak quit his post early on Thursday hours after the Houthi militia called for mass protests against the "foreign interference" they said was behind his appointment.
Hundreds of Yemenis demonstrated in Sanaa on Sunday demanding that Houthi rebels who had seized control of the capital last week leave, a day after the Shi'ite Muslim fighters attacked the home of the intelligence chief.
The United States told its citizens in Yemen to leave and said it was reducing the number of U.S. government staff there due to political unrest and fears of a possible military escalation.
