(MENAFN- Arab News) SANAA: Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounded Houthi positions across Sanaa only hours after the UN envoy to Yemen arrived in the militia-held capital residents said.
Among the airstrike targets was a house of deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh in his home town of Sanhan south of the capital.
The latest air raids also hit the militia-held air force headquarters in Sanaa arms depots in Sanhan as well as the Dailami air base also in the capital witnesses told Agence France-Presse.
Other raids targeted Houthi militia positions in the oil-rich eastern province of Marib and the western region of Hodaidah.
Saleh no longer resides in his Sanhan home which has also been targeted in previous raids and he is believed to be staying at a hotel in Sanaa.
The raids came only hours after UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed flew in to Sanaa for talks with political parties according to a militia-run website.
A conference on Yemen which was due to take place in Geneva last Thursday was postponed in a fresh blow to UN efforts to broker peace in the country.
'Millions of dollars'
The raids came after Saleh renewed calls for talks in Geneva between the Yemeni parties as well as negotiations between Yemenis and Saudi Arabia.
'Sooner or later we will hold talks with Saudi Arabia' said Saleh in an interview broadcast on the Beirut-based Al-Mayadeen television channel whose presenter said he spoke from Sanaa.
Saleh said the Geneva talks [on Yemen] which he himself first proposed should focus on 'power transfer choosing a new authority and the return to elections' as well as 'condemning the Saudi aggression'.
His forces have been backing the Houthi militias who seized Sanaa in September before expanding across other parts of the country.
The former strongman no longer resides in his Sanhan house.