Yemen Live Blog

Southern separatists in Yemen have set fire to a tent camp housing anti-government protesters in the port city of Aden, witnesses said on Sunday, in opposition to an election this month to replace outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Southern separatists joined protesters calling for Saleh to leave last year, but the two sides have since grown apart.

The separatists want to revive a southern socialist state that was united with the north in 1990. They fear the February 21 election will not serve their goal.

Anti-Saleh demonstrators broadly back the vote as a step towards ending his 33-year rule.

Fighters in southern Yemen said they had executed three men on Sunday for giving the United States information used to carry out drone strikes in the area.

Residents of the towns of Jaar and Azzan said two Saudis and one Yemeni were beheaded at dawn by Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law).

A spokesperson for the group later said none of those executed were Saudi citizens, but all three had been working for the intelligence services of the kingdom, a close US ally. [Reuters]

An armed group in southern Yemen has executed three men they accused of giving the United States information used to carry out drone strikes in the area, a spokesman for the group said in a text message. 

Residents of the towns of Jaar and Azzan said two Saudis and one Yemeni were beheaded at dawn on Sunday by the armed group Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law). 

Weakened by months of protests against outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen's government has lost control of whole chunks of the country, giving Islamist armed groups room to tighten

their grip in the south, notably in Abyan province. 

The US, a prime target of al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing, which tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit in 2009, has been launching drone strikes against armed groups in the south.

Last month, at least 12 people were killed in one such attack. 

US federal prosecutors said on Friday that Anwar al-Awlaki, a leader of al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate who died in another drone strike last year, had personally directed and approved the attempted airliner attack in which a Nigerian with a bomb hidden in his underpants failed to detonate it fully. 

Seated front and center amongst powerful Yemeni sheikhs, Sadiq al-Ahmar did not have any kind words for Ali Abdullah Saleh when it was his turn to speak, claiming that the outgoing president provided false information to foreign governments "for money" [Luke Somers/Al Jazeera]

Prominent tribal sheikh Abdul Wahab al-Dailami issued a fatwa declaring that all Yemeni citizens most participate in the upcoming presidential election, and that following the election, Southern Yemenis' needs should be attended to first [Luke Somers/Al Jazeera]

After 33 years of a form of rule Saleh termed "dancing on the heads of snakes," it is clear that after February 21, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi will be forced to negotiate power struggles with Yemen's tribes [Luke Somers/Al Jazeera]