Yemen’s beleaguered government said yesterday Saudi-led airstrikes against its Houthi militia opponents would not last long on the second day of a Gulf Arab-led campaign against the Iranian-allied militia that could escalate a proxy conflict spreading through the region.

Warplanes targeted Houthi forces controlling Yemen’s capital and their northern heartland yesterday and, in a boost for Riyadh, fellow monarchy Morocco said it would join the rapidly-assembled Sunni Muslim coalition against the Shi’ite Muslim group.

Tribes in Yemen’s oil producing Marib region said they supported the air campaign, but Houthi forces advanced south despite the airstrikes and Pakistan, named by Saudi Arabia on Thursday as a partner, said it had made no decision on whether to contribute.

Meanwhile later yesterday Yemen's Houthi militia and allied army units seized the southern city of Shaqra in Abyan province , residents said, gaining their first foothold on the Arabian Sea.

Their entry into the city means they control all the land entries to the port of Aden, some 100km to the southwest, which is the last base of their embattled enemy, President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Riyadh’s move is the latest front in a growing regional contest for power with Iran

During a week of intense fighting with the President's loyalists, the Houthis have grabbed the Red Sea port of al-Mukha to Aden's northwest, and the city's northern outskirts. Riyadh’s move is the latest front in a growing regional contest for power with Iran that is also playing out in Syria, where Tehran backs Assad’s government against mainly Sunni rebels, and Iraq, where Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias are playing a major role in fighting. Sunni monarchies in the Gulf are backing embattled Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and his fellow Sunnis in the country’s south against the Shi’ite advance.

Mosques in Riyadh yesterday preached fiery sermons against the Houthis and their Iranian allies, describing the fight as a religious duty.

Residents said aircraft targeted bases around Sanaa of Republican Guards allied to the Houthis, including one near the presidential compound and also struck near a military installation that houses missiles.

The Republican Guards are loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Houthi’s main ally who retains wide power despite having stepped down in 2011.

Earlier air strikes south of the city and in the oil-producing Marib region targeted military installations also affiliated with Saleh. Yemeni oil flows through the Marib pipeline. The well-armed tribes are the authority in the province so their support for the air strikes is significant. Warplanes also hit districts in the Houthis’ northerly province of Saada. The strikes hit a market in Kataf al-Bokaa, north of Saada, killing or wounding 15 people.

The coalition began air strikes on Thursday to try to roll back Houthi gains in the Arabian Peninsula country and to shore up the authority of embattled President Hadi, who has been holed up in Aden after fleeing Sanaa in February.

Hadi left Aden on Thursday and is attending an Arab summit meeting in Egypt today, where he aims to build Arab support for the air strikes. He arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday by way of Oman. The Saudi campaign raised morale among some Gulf Arabs who view Tehran’s growing influence in the region with suspicion.

One of the region’s top businessman, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor of the United Arab Emirates, wrote on al Arabiya website: “There can be no meaningful dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a nation with ambitions of reinstating the Persian Empire and quashing Arabs under its boot, just as it has stamped upon Sunnis and ethnic/religious minorities in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq.”

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