Sanaa, June 20: Two senior Yemeni army officers were killed on Sunday in a gun battle with separatist militants in the southern town of Daleh which also left two gunmen dead, the defence ministry said on its website.
“Outlaw terrorist elements” opened fire on a military convoy on the town’s main road at dawn on Sunday, immediately killing the two officers, one of them a lieutenant colonel, the ministry’s 26sep.net website reported.
Two gunmen were killed and a third wounded in the clash, the report said, adding that the three militants were on the government’s “most-wanted list.”
The ministry indicated that the assailants were members of the Southern Movement, a coalition of groups wanting greater autonomy or independence for the region.
On Tuesday, eight people were wounded in clashes between southern activists and police in Daleh during the funerals of four civilians killed on June 6 in government shelling of the town, according to witnesses.
A soldier was also killed in the June 6 violence.
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.
Residents of the south complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources.
But the Southern Movement denies government claims over its links with Al-Qaeda, which was blamed for Saturday’s deadly attack on an intelligence post in Aden that killed seven security personnel and four civilians.
—Agencies