SANAA — Three Yemeni soldiers have been killed in clashes between the army and militants from the separatist Southern Movement in Daleh province, a source from the movement said on Wednesday.
Three other soldiers and three militants were wounded in the fighting that erupted when the separatists attacked a military post in the southern province during the past two days, the source told AFP.
A tank, a military vehicle and an oil tanker were destroyed in the fighting, the source said.
In a separate incident, armed men from the movement, a coalition of groups wanting greater autonomy or independence for south Yemen, bombarded the house of Daleh's provincial governor and a military post, a security official told AFP, adding that no damage was reported.
An intelligence officer also escaped an assassination attempt on Tuesday by armed men in the town of Khawbar, in Daleh's northern district, a local source said.
However, one of his companions was killed and another wounded, a local source told AFP.
Over the past year, the south has witnessed increasingly bloody protests against perceived discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources.
On Sunday, two senior Yemeni army officers were killed in a gun battle with separatist militants in Daleh which also left two gunmen dead and one wounded, according to the defence ministry.
South Yemen was independent from 1967, when British forces pulled out, until 1990, when its leaders decided to unite with the north. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short civil war that ended with the region overrun by northern troops.
But the Southern Movement denies government claims of links with Al-Qaeda, which was blamed for Saturday's deadly attack on an intelligence post in the southern port city of Aden that killed seven security personnel and four civilians.
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