Twenty civilians were among at least 45 people killed in Saudi-led air strikes on the rebel-held armed forces headquarters in the Yemeni capital on Sunday, a medic said.

The raids on the army headquarters in central Sanaa came a day after the kingdom's air defenses shot down a Scud missile fired from the war-torn country.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted a Scud missile fired on its territory by rebel forces in neighboring Yemen early Saturday as momentum gathers for peace talks in Switzerland next weekend.

"The Royal Saudi Air Defense Forces intercepted it with a Patriot missile," said a statement from the Saudi-led coalition which has been waging an air war against the rebels since March 26.

The Director of the Department of the Middle East and North Africa at the French Foreign Ministry Jean-François Girault will return to Lebanon after he discusses the developments regarding the presidential crisis with major powers.

An Nahar newspaper reported that Girault, who left Beirut on Friday afternoon, will return by the end of the month after conducting the necessary contacts with the Islamic Republic of Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican.

Forces loyal to Yemen's former president attacked "several locations" on the Saudi border, the Saudi-led coalition said on Saturday, as momentum gathered towards U.N.-brokered peace talks in Geneva.

Huthi Shiite rebels, who are allied with forces loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, confirmed on Friday they would attend talks in Geneva aimed at ending weeks of war that has cost more than 2,000 lives.

The OPEC oil producers' cartel has decided to keep the "same" output target of 30 million barrels per day, Saudi Arabia's Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said Friday.

"The ceiling is the same. You will be surprised how amicable the meeting was," Naimi told reporters after the gathering of the 12-nation cartel that pumps one third of the world's oil.

Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil stressed Friday that the official Lebanese stance is only expressed by the cabinet, urging Arab states not to allow the Iranian expansion in the region by taking the initiative.

The minister hailed Saudi Arabia for overcoming the stances expressed by some Lebanese officials, in hints to Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, considering that it “indicates the kingdom's affection towards Lebanon.”

Pakistan's foreign secretary on Thursday hotly denied his country could sell Saudi Arabia an "off-the-shelf" nuclear weapon, after days of high-level talks in Washington.

After meetings at the White House, Pentagon and State Department, Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry described the suggestions Pakistan could sell a weapon as "unfounded, baseless and untrue."

Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition pounded rebel positions in central Yemen on Thursday as air raids intensified amid attempts to revive U.N.-proposed talks in Switzerland, witnesses said.

Jets targeted positions held by Shiite Huthi rebels and allied forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in the city of Taez.

The government tasked the Lebanese army on Thursday with taking necessary measures to deploy inside the northeastern border town of Arsal to protect it against militant attacks, Information Minister Ramzi Jreij said.

“After long discussions on the catastrophic situation in Arsal and the presence of militants on its outskirts, the cabinet expressed full confidence in the army,” Jreij said in his briefing to reporters following a government session that was chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail.

A U.N. envoy told the Security Council on Wednesday that Yemen's government will attend peace talks in Geneva but the Huthi rebels have yet to confirm their participation, diplomats said.

U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed has tentatively set June 14 as the date for the talks to begin in Geneva between all parties in Yemen, which has been pounded by Saudi-led coalition air strikes for more than two months.