A Yemeni soldier was killed and two others wounded Saturday in a drone attack by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in the south of the country, a government official told AFP.

A military source in the besieged city of Taiz confirmed the outcome of the attack, the latest in the conflict in Yemen , despite diplomatic efforts to stop the conflict, which has been going on since 2014.

The drone attack targeted a military checkpoint "before the passage of a convoy including the Minister of Defense, Major General Mohsen Al-Daari, along with the Chief of Staff, Major General Sagheer bin Aziz, while they were heading to the city of Taiz, besieged from three sides by the Houthis," according to the government official, who requested anonymity.

A security official said, "The governor of Taiz was part of the minister's convoy and the chief of staff's convoy, along with Saudi officers from the leadership of the Arab coalition, but the targets were carried out at a checkpoint where soldiers were gathering to receive the delegation."

Taiz, Yemen's third-largest city, is under the control of the Saudi-backed government, but it is besieged by the Houthi rebels, who seized swathes of the country in a decade-long war.

The clashes that erupted on Monday in the oil-producing Ma'rib governorate, one of the main battlefields and the government's last stronghold in the north, left 10 soldiers dead, according to military sources, AFP.

The escalation comes in light of the growing international efforts to end the ongoing war in the poorest country in the Arab world.

Yemen has witnessed a bloody conflict since 2014 between forces loyal to the internationally recognized government and the Houthi rebels. The conflict escalated with the intervention of Saudi Arabia at the head of a military coalition in March 2015 to stop the Houthis' advance after they took control of the capital, Sana'a.

Since then, the conflict has killed tens of thousands of Yemenis and caused a humanitarian crisis that the United Nations described as the worst in the world, with the displacement of millions of people.

Earlier this month, Riyadh and Tehran agreed to resume diplomatic relations after seven years of severing them, which revived hopes for a truce in Yemen, where the two countries support two warring parties.

However, analysts ruled out that the sudden announcement of March 10 would be able to put an end to the conflict immediately.