Riyadh on Sunday demanded Tehran stop backing Shiite rebels in Yemen but insisted it is "not at war with Iran," as a Saudi-led warplanes launched fresh strikes on rebel forces.

In the third week of the air strikes mounted by Saudi Arabia and its allies, the International Organization for Migration said it flew a first plane-load of 143 foreigners out of Yemen.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Sunday issued a decree making the digging or use of illegal tunnels in border areas punishable by life in jail.

The army has intensified efforts to destroy such underground tunnels connecting the restive Sinai Peninsula to the Palestinian Gaza Strip, since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Kurdish militia made headway on Sunday into Syria's northern Raqa province, where the extremist Islamic State group has set up its de facto capital, Kurdish officials and a monitor said.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) "took over a large cement factory and three villages" northwest of the town of Ain Issa, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Islamabad on Sunday hit out at the United Arab Emirates for condemning a parliamentary vote by Pakistani lawmakers to stay out of the conflict in Yemen, in a rare display of discord between the two allies.

Pakistan's parliament on Friday passed a unanimous resolution backing the government's commitment to protect Saudi Arabia's territory from Shiite Huthi rebels, but declined Riyadh's request for Pakistani troops, ships and warplanes inside Yemen.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Sunday pleaded for the resumption of peace talks in Yemen and called for an end to all military action in the war-torn country.

Ban, speaking in Doha on the sidelines of a U.N. crime conference, said the fighting in Yemen should not be allowed to grow into a protracted regional conflict.

The International Organization for Migration said Sunday it had flown a first planeload of foreign nationals out of Yemen and aimed to continue evacuating foreigners stranded in the conflict-torn country.

"The operation was a success and paves the way for continuing the evacuations of more than 16,000 third country nationals who are stranded in Yemen," IOM said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia called on Iran to stop supporting Shiite rebels in Yemen on Sunday but Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal insisted Riyadh was not at war with Tehran.

"Unless Iran thinks it is suddenly become part of Yemen, we are not at war with Iran," he said at a press conference with his French counterpart Laurent Fabius.

A suicide car bomb targeting a police station in Egypt's restive Sinai Peninsula on Sunday killed six people, including a police officer, and wounded at least 44 others, police and medics said.

The bombing came hours after a roadside blast hit an army vehicle killing six soldiers and wounding two in the peninsula, where security forces are battling an Islamist insurgency.

Jordan expressed concerns over air traffic safety Sunday as it restated its opposition to the construction of an Israeli international airport near the coastal city of Aqaba.

Transport ministry spokesman Ali Odaibat told the official Petra news agency Jordan had notified the International Civil Aviation Organization about its concerns over the Israeli project and to "stress Jordan's keenness to protect its airspace."

A Syrian regime air strike hit a school in the main northern city of Aleppo on Sunday killing five children and four other civilians, a monitoring group said.

"Military aircraft struck a school in east Aleppo city and killed five children, three female teachers and one man," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.