IRAN dispatched a destroyer and another ship to waters off the Arabian peninsula yesterday in response to escalating intervention by the US and its allies in Yemen’s civil war.

Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari explained that the ships would be part of an anti-piracy campaign “safeguarding naval routes for vessels in the region.”

But Tehran’s action comes amid an intense Saudi-led Gulf Arab air campaign targeting Yemen’s Shi’ite Houthi rebels and their allies, forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Saudi intervention has been co-ordinated with Washington, which is concerned by the Houthis’ links to Iran, its biggest regional rival.

US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in Riyadh on Tuesday that the US was committed to defending Saudi Arabia.

“We have expedited weapons deliveries, we have increased our intelligence sharing and we have established a joint co-ordination and planning cell in the Saudi operations centre,” he said after meeting Saudi royals and deposed Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who took refuge in Saudi Arabia last week.

Intelligence sharing includes making available raw aerial imagery to enable the Saudi warplanes to better strike anti-Hadi forces, said a US military official.

Mr Blinken said that Washington and the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council must co-ordinate closely and press all parties to seek a political solution.

The Saudi-led air campaign, which began on March 26, has so far failed to stop the Houthi advance on Aden, Yemen’s second-largest city, which had been declared the provisional capital by Mr Hadi before he fled.

Washington said that the chaos had allowed the local al-Qaida branch, which it considers the most dangerous wing of the terrorist group, to make “great gains” on the ground.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said that the collapse of the central government in Yemen made it harder to conduct counterterrorism operations against al-Qaida.

The World Health Organisation warned this week of an unfolding humanitarian crisis, saying that at least 560 people, including dozens of children, had been killed, mostly in the aerial bombing campaign and ground battles.

Over 1,700 people have been wounded and another 100,000 have fled their homes over the past three weeks.