PRESIDENT Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi blamed this week’s decisive sweep by Shi’ite rebels over the capital Sanaa on a “foreign plot” yesterday, implicitly fingering Iran.

“The chapters of the foreign plot are not complete yet,” President Hadi told a parliamentary gathering.

Earlier, he accused the rebels, known as Houthis, of receiving Iranian support.

Tehran has always denied backing the rebels, who dealt a heavy blow to Sunni Islamist forces last week in a series of battles.

A United Nations-brokered peace deal was signed on Sunday, making concessions to the Houthis, who deployed fighters in the streets, set up checkpoints and seized weapons after overrunning their opponents’ barracks.

They seized homes, offices and military bases of their Sunni foes on Monday, forcing many into hiding and triggering an exodus of civilians from the city after a week of fighting that left 340 people dead.

It was the latest development in the Houthi blitz that has plunged the country into turmoil, pitting the Shi’ite rebels against the Sunni-dominated military and their Islamist tribal allies.

Heavily armed Houthi fighters seized tanks and armoured vehicles from military headquarters they had overrun on Monday and raided the home of long-time arch-enemy Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar.

Maj-Gen Ahmar is the commander of the army’s elite 1st Armoured Division and a veteran of a series of wars against the Shi’ite rebels.

He went into hiding after failing to persuade President Hadi to deploy warplanes against the rebels, which would have unleashed a full-scale civil war.