The first heavy losses suffered by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen will only strengthen its resolve to neutralize the threat posed by Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels, analysts say.

On Friday, a missile strike on a base killed 45 Emirati soldiers, 10 Saudis and five Bahrainis, the Sunni coalition's highest death toll in a day since it unleashed its air campaign in March.

Saudi Arabia will cut spending and issue more bonds as it faces a record budget shortfall due to falling oil prices, the finance minister said on Sunday.

The kingdom -- the biggest Arab economy and the world's largest oil exporter -- is facing an unprecedented budget crunch after crude prices dropped by more than half in a year to below $50 a barrel.

Ten Saudi soldiers were killed in the missile strike in Yemen that also left 45 Emirati soldiers dead, Saudi media said Saturday, in the kingdom's first losses inside the country.

Friday's explosion at the Safer base in Marib province east of the rebel-held Yemeni capital Sanaa was also reported to have killed five troops from Bahrain.

U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed Saudi Arabia's King Salman for a first and long-delayed White House summit Friday, marked by warm public words amid clashing views on Middle Eastern crises.

Obama made the rare move of greeting the 79-year-old monarch at the doors of the White House, as he hailed the "longstanding friendship" between the two countries.

Saudi authorities put to death a convicted murderer on Thursday, bringing to 130 the number of executions in the kingdom so far this year, according to an AFP tally.

Saudi citizen Mashari al-Shammari was found guilty of killing fellow tribesman Sufouq al-Shammari in a frenzied attack with a gun, a dagger and a stick, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

U.S. President Barack Obama will host Saudi Arabia's King Salman in their first and long-delayed White House summit Friday, with clashing views on Middle Eastern crises coming to the fore.

Salman's inaugural visit as king -- originally scheduled for May and cancelled by Riyadh -- has been billed as a way of reinforcing U.S.-Saudi relations.

Saudi Arabia's top cleric hit out at Iranian film "Muhammad" on Wednesday describing its portrayal of the prophet's childhood as a "hostile act" and a "distortion" of Islam.

Iran's most expensive movie, which opened nationwide in the Shiite Islamic republic last week, depicts the prophet on screen, an act that is prohibited in Sunni Islam.

Saudi authorities said Monday that three Canadians, one Pakistani and a Nigerian woman were among 10 people killed in a fire at a residential complex rented by oil giant Saudi Aramco at the weekend.

The civil defense revised down from 11 the death toll for Sunday's blaze at the complex in the kingdom's Eastern Province, in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

A Saudi-led coalition air raid struck a factory in northern Yemen on Sunday killing 17 civilians and 14 Shiite Huthi rebels, medics and witnesses said.

The raid targeted a bottled-water plant in Hajja, a province bordering Saudi Arabia. Most of the bodies transferred to the main public hospital in Hajja were charred, according to medics.

Saudi Arabia allowed women to register to stand in local elections on Sunday, in a historic first for the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.

In a country where women face a host of restrictions including a driving ban, the move was welcomed as an important step forward.