The US government has said it will cut back on the sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia as pressure rises over the rising civilian casualties in the ongoing military conflict in Yemen.

Off-limits arms, however, will be confined only to precision-guided weapons, according to a BBC report citing a source at Pentagon.

The sale of $1.15bn-worth of tanks and other land-based weapons to Saud Arabia, approved by the US Senate in September, is understood to still go ahead.

The US said it will also continue providing the kingdom with intelligence focused on border security and in training pilots involved in the air military campaign

Saudi Arabia leads a multi-country coalition that launched a military offensive in Yemen in March 2015, to restore the legitimate government led by President Abdrabbu Mansour al-Hadi and hold back the Houthi fighters, believed to be backed by Iran, from advancing and major parts of the country.

The coalition’s air strikes are responsible for the majority (60 per cent) of the estimated 3,799 civilian casualties in the 21-month civil war, the United Nations’ human right office said earlier this year.

In October, a coalition air strike killed over 150 and wounded more than 500 people attending a funeral in Sanaa, the country’s capital.

The latest estimates indicate that the war has resulted in over 10,000 total deaths, displacement of three million Yemenis and forced 200,000 Yemenis to flee abroad.