RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA—Yemen’s Shiite rebels attacked Saudi border posts, sparking fierce fighting overnight that killed three Saudi troops and dozens of rebels, the kingdom said.

Saudi-led airstrikes continued to bomb rebel positions inside Yemen on Friday, including a strike in the capital, Sanaa, that killed at least 20 civilians.

The attack late Thursday by the Houthi rebels was the most dramatic border incident since Saudi Arabia launched an intense campaign of airstrikes against the rebels just over a month ago. It also brought to 11 the number of Saudi soldiers killed in border skirmishes during the air campaign.

The assault underscored how the Iran-backed Houthis are still capable of launching major operations despite the airstrikes that have relentlessly targeted their positions and those of their allies — military units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Saudi-led offensive, which started March 26, aims to diminish the military capabilities of the Houthis, who have overrun Sanaa and are advancing deep into the country’s south.

The UN says at least 550 civilians have been killed in the war.

Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled the country in March, is now based in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, along with most of his government. There have been recent calls by officials in exile for a Saudi-led ground invasion to restore Hadi’s government to power.

Also Friday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting on Yemen, following warnings by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who said basic services in the impoverished Arab country are “on the brink of collapse.” Ban also called for an immediate ceasefire, or at least humanitarian pauses to help the desperate civilians.

The meeting, however, ended with the 15 Security Council members unable to agree on an immediate statement on the growing crisis.

On Friday, the Saudi-led coalition continued to pound rebel positions. One airstrike targeted a house of a top Houthi rebel commander in Sanaa’s Saawan district, demolishing at least six houses and killing at least 20 civilians, including 10 women and children, officials and witnesses told an Associated Press reporter at the scene.

In the southern port city of Aden — Hadi’s base before he fled to Riyadh— and in the city of Taiz, warplanes bombed positions of the Houthis and Saleh’s forces killing scores of fighters, according to security officials. At least 12 people were killed because of ground fighting in Aden on Friday, according to medical officials.

In the border attack, Houthi fighters in tanks and armoured vehicles struck “border posts and control points” in the southern Saudi region of Najran on Thursday night, the kingdom’s Defence Ministry said.

Saudi forces, backed by fighter jets, repelled the attack and “dozens of the militiamen were killed. Three soldiers of the ground troops were martyred,” according to the statement, which did not clarify how far across the border the attackers came.

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