SANAA, Yemen -- A Saudi-led coalition Tuesday carried out the heaviest airstrikes on the Yemeni capital since a five-day truce with Yemen's Shiite rebels expired earlier this week, hitting weapons depots in the mountains surrounding Sanaa and sending dozens of families fleeing their homes.
The bombardment began shortly after midnight Monday, with airstrikes targeting rebel-held military depots in the mountains of Fag Atan and Noqom, where missiles, tanks and artillery are kept, the residents said. There was no word on casualties.
The Saudi-led coalition repeatedly has struck the two sites since launching an air campaign against the Iranian-backed rebels, known as Houthis, on March 26. But Tuesday's assault was the heaviest since Sunday's expiration of a five-day humanitarian truce, which was repeatedly violated.
By sunset, a fresh wave of airstrikes sent fire and smoke rising from the mountains around the capital, Sanaa. Dozens of families living close to the bombed sites hurriedly loaded their belongings onto vehicles and left in search of safer areas.
Missiles hit several Houthi positions Tuesday in their strongholds in the northern provinces of Saada and Hajjah, as well as a gathering of fighters allied with the Houthis in the city of Ibb, south of Sanaa. The rebels and their allies also were hit in the western city of Taiz and the southern city of Aden, near its airport, as well as in the eastern province of Marib.
Airstrikes also targeted a house owned by ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh in the Sanaa suburb of Sanhan, flattening it.
Saleh's whereabouts were not known, but his loyalists in the country's fragmented army have joined ranks with the Houthis. That alliance paved the way for the rebel takeover of Sanaa in September and boosted the rebels' ability to advance into southern cities in an effort to expand their territorial gains.
Fearing more airstrikes, residents in areas around Saleh's other houses -- such as in Sanaa's al-Dajaj district -- packed up and left.
"Our house is just next to Saleh's house, and most of the people have left. Now the district is like a ghost city," said Fathi al-Udini, who left with his family.
Meanwhile, the Houthis fired Katyusha rockets at the Saudi border region of Najran from their stronghold of Saada on Tuesday, according to tribesmen in the region. The adjacent border area of al-Jouf province saw heavy clashes between Houthi fighters and tribesmen believed to be backed and armed by Saudi Arabia.
The battles are meant to open a new front line with Saada to distract the Houthis from shelling Saudi territories, the tribesmen said.
The ground fighting did not stop even during the truce between the Houthis and fighters backing internationally-recognized President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi, now in exile in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Houthis and their allies have for weeks been trying to take over Aden, the strategic port city on the Arabian Sea, and the truce has apparently given them time to deploy more troops for that purpose.
A senior military commander in Aden said the rebels and their allies have surrounded the city from three different sides and are now in control of several large sections of Aden. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced from the area, and pro-Hadi fighters have been given three days to surrender their weapons, he added.
The residents, tribesmen, the commander and all Yemeni officials spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals by the Houthis.
The Yemeni conflict has killed 1,820 people and wounded 7,330 since March 19, according to United Nations estimates. The estimates also show that nearly a half million people at least have been displaced in the period since the beginning of the fighting until May 7.
Also on Tuesday, World Food Program called for "predictable pauses" in the fighting in Yemen to deliver food to conflict zones.
"We are seriously concerned about families out of our reach," said the agency's representative to Yemen, Purnima Kashyap. "We need predictable pauses in fighting to allow us to line up partners on the ground to move food and reach the maximum number of people."
In New York, U.N. officials warned that Yemen's fuel supplies are dwindling fast.
"If the country as a whole runs out of fuel, there's so many things that cannot work, and therefore there needs to be the ability for ships and planes to get into the airports and ports and deliver supplies," said Farhan Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general.
Information for this article was contributed by Cara Anna of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/20/2015