Car bombers targeted the headquarters of Yemen’s Shia rebels and mosques in Sana’a yesterday, while Saudi-led air strikes hit a convoy of civilian vehicles and killed at least 31 people, authorities said.

There were no official reports on casualties from the Sana’a attacks on Wednesday night, as Muslims around the world prepared for the start of the holy month of Ramadan, but a security official said “dozens” had been killed or injured.

The official said four car bombs, two driven by suicide bombers, targeted the Houthi political bureau and three mosques in Sana’a.



Delegates attending peace talks in Switzerland reported no progress on the second day of a UN-sponsored push for a Ramadan truce.

Yemen’s conflict pits the Houthis, who seized the capital last year, and military units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against an array of forces, including southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Islamic militants and loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. The Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi began carrying out airstrikes on 26 March.

Vendor selling dates at market in Sana’a’s old city as Muslims prepare for start of Ramadan. Photograph: Mohammed Huwais/AFP/Getty Images

Earlier on Wednesday Houthi fighters in central Yemen blew up the home of a senior politician, Abdel-Aziz Jubari, while he was attending the Geneva talks as a member of the exiled government’s delegation.

Yemen’s foreign minister, Reyad Yassin Abdulla, said in Geneva that the peace talks had “made no progress”.

Residents of Dhamar city said the Houthis, who had taken over Jubari’s house in April, used dynamite to blow up the building early in the morning. Images of its collapsed ceiling on a pile of rubble were circulated online.

Jubari, who is deputy head of the delegation sent to Geneva by Hadi, said he was shocked when he heard the news.

“This is regrettable that people’s manners and behaviours can reach this point,” Jubari said in Geneva.

“Of course my house is not the only house in Yemen … A lot of people’s homes and properties have been targeted in an unbelievable way.”

Abdulla, the head of the government delegation said: “It is in this spirit of revenge that they are dealing with all the Yemeni people and we cannot remain silent on this.”

No one from the Houthi side was immediately available to comment.

The Houthis seized the Yemeni capital Sana’a in September and pressed into the country’s centre and south, forcing Hadi and his government into exile in Riyadh.

They say they are campaigning against corruption and ending years of political marginalisation.

A coalition of Arab states headed by Saudi Arabia has been bombing the Houthis and their allies in Yemen’s army since 26 March. The Houthis hail from the Zaydi sect of Shia Islam which Iran also subscribes to.

The aim of the Saudi coalition is to restore Hadi to power and head off what they see as Iran’s expansion in the region. The Houthis deny receiving military backing from Iran.

The latest air raids by the Saudi-led alliance focused on army bases in Sana’a and Houthi targets in Yemen’s central desert and the mountainous province of Mahweet, one of the last provinces in Yemen not to be bombed since the campaign began.

More than 2,600 civilians and combatants have been killed since March and a humanitarian crisis is looming as supplies of food, medicine and other goods run short.

In Geneva, the UN’s special envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, has been conducting shuttle diplomacy trying to bridge differences.

Early on Wednesday Abdulla played down the prospects of a quick agreement on a ceasefire, saying his delegation remained focused on implementing a UN security council resolution demanding the Houthis quit cities they seized in September and subsequent weeks.

He said that while everyone sought a ceasefire, he did not want one merely “for the sake of publicity”.

UN envoy Ould Cheikh Ahmed, who has asked the Houthi party to pick 10 of their number to represent them at the talks, said he remained optimistic. But Abdulla said the Houthis had not formed their negotiating team by early evening.

“We don’t know what they want … They are just sitting in their hotel making all kind of rumours,” he said. “We have 48 hours.”

In a speech on Tuesday, Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, held out hope for a resolution but accused his opponents of seeking to advance Saudi Arabia’s agenda.

“There is nothing hindering a political solution in the country; the solution is available, but they (Saudis) are the ones who ruin it with their aggression,” he said.

Hadi and the allied Arab states have demanded the Houthis comply with a UN security council resolution in April calling on the group to quit Yemen’s main cities.