AFP - Shiite rebels in northern Yemen accused Saudi forces of launching a major cross-border ground and air attack on Monday, a day after an alleged failed incursion.

"The Saudis began an attack along many fronts on the Yemeni border," said the Zaidi rebels, also known as Huthis.

The Saudis are using "all types of ground and air weapons," including tanks, artillery, rocket launchers, Apache helicopters and jet fighters, they said in a statement.

Earlier, the Huthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing villages on Sunday and through the night, following what they called a failed Saudi incursion.

"The (Saudi) air force began bomb and missile attacks on various villages in the Malahidh, Shedah, Hidan and Razah areas" of northwest Yemen, they said in a separate statement.

Saudi aircraft also bombed Saqin near the city of Saada, they said, as well as Saada suburbs and a central security building inside the city. Dahyan had likewise been targeted.

Sunday's attack was led by "around 50 Hummers" supported by helicopters and fighter jets, before the Saudis were repelled and "the aggressors suffered heavy losses," the rebels said.

The Saudi-owned pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat on Monday quoted the Saudi military's southern command as saying it had captured 965 Yemeni infiltrators over the previous two days.

The infiltrators were captured in Jebel al-Dukhan, Al-Doud and Al-Rumayh, the paper said.

It was not possible to verify the number with the Saudi military.

The main clashes in northern Yemen over the past three months have pitted the Huthis against the Sanaa government, which on August 11 launched "Operation Scorched Earth," an all-out assault.

Saudi forces entered the conflict on November 4 after the rebels killed a border guard and occupied two small villages inside Saudi territory the previous day protesting over alleged Saudi backing for Sanaa.

The rebels have been clashing with Yemeni government forces on and off in the rugged mountains of Saada province and surrounding areas since 2004.

They complain of being marginalised and oppressed by the government, which accuses them of seeking to reinstate a form of clerical rule that ended in a republican coup in 1962.