Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi declared his full support on Thursday for Saudi-led air strikes againts Huthi rebels in Yemen.

"I affirm complete support" for the campaign, he said at a meeting of Arab foreign ministers. "It is an operation against targets belonging to the Huthis who committed a coup."

Hundreds of terrified civilians fled the Yemeni capital on Thursday after a sleepless night of heavy Saudi air raids against Shiite Huthi rebels.

"I'm leaving with my family -- Sanaa is no longer safe," said Mohammed, loading personal belongings onto a minibus in a northern district of Sanaa, which has been under Huthi control since September.

Saudi Arabia halted flights at seven airports near the Yemeni border on Thursday, as it launched air strikes against Huthi rebels in its southern neighbor, the civil aviation department said.

"The General Authority of Civil Aviation of Saudi Arabia announced a temporary suspension of international and domestic flights to and from airports in the south of the kingdom," from dawn on Thursday, the department said in a statement.

Morocco has joined the Saudi-led military coalition that has intervened to support Yemeni President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi in his fight against Iran-backed Shiite rebels, the foreign ministry said Thursday.

Rabat has "put at the disposition" of the coalition Moroccan warplanes already based in the United Arab Emirates, from which they have been participating in U.S.-led strikes against the Islamic State group, a statement said.

Sudan is providing ground troops as well as warplanes for a Saudi-led military intervention against Shiite rebels in Yemen, the defense minister said on Thursday.

Saudi warplanes launched strikes on the Huthi rebels on Thursday in a bid to stop their advance on embattled President Abedrabbo Mansur Hadi's refuge in the main southern city of Aden.

Pakistan is examining a request from Saudi Arabia to join a coalition to defend Yemen's president against advancing rebels threatening his stronghold in Aden, Islamabad said Thursday.

The Gulf kingdom has begun air strikes against Shiite Huthi rebels and the Saudi ambassador in Washington said a coalition of 10 countries, including Pakistan, was being formed to protect the Yemeni government.

Saudi air strikes on Shiite rebels in Yemen triggered a furious reaction from regional rival Iran on Thursday, with top officials warning that military action could spill into other countries.

The bombing of the Huthi rebels, who are said to be backed by Iran, came after days in which Yemen was said to be facing civil war.

Mustaqbal Movment chief and Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri praised on Thursday the “wise and courageous decision” taken by Saudi King Salman to intervene militarily in Yemen as Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat feared that it would affect the interest of Lebanese in the Gulf.

“The Iranian interference in Sanaa compelled an Arab reaction,” Hariri said in comments to the al-Arabiya Arabic language television station.

Saudi authorities on Wednesday beheaded a man found guilty of smuggling drugs into the ultra-conservative kingdom, the interior ministry said, amid a surge in executions this year.

Faisal bin Rafaa al-Ashjaie was convicted of smuggling "a large amount of amphetamine pills," the ministry said in a statement on the official SPA news agency.

Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel blamed Iran on the spread of crises in the region and criticized Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun over his “illogical” stance from the presidential deadlock.

“The (region's) crises began since Iran started to spread its influence in Iraq, Syria and in Lebanon through Hizbullah,” Gemayel told pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat in an interview published on Wednesday.