A Yemeni soldier stand on a hill overlooking Sanaa Eleven people, including five Yemeni soldiers and three separatists, were killed in a gun battle Tuesday in the city of Daleh, the latest violence to hit the country's volatile south. A military official said that gunmen ambushed an army convoy near the office of the local government in the southern city, attacking the military vehicles with anti-tank rockets and automatic rifles.
They "killed five soldiers, including an officer, and wounded eight others," the official told AFP.
A southern activist speaking on condition of anonymity said three of his comrades died in the fighting while 20 people were wounded, mostly civilians.
The activist said militants torched a military vehicle and captured 15 soldiers during the confrontation, after three others were taken hostage in a clash on Monday.
Separatists in the formerly independent south had boycotted a national dialogue that agreed last month to transform Yemen into a federation in a bid to address local grievances that have fuelled unrest across the Arab world's poorest country.
South Yemen was independent between the end of British colonial rule in 1967 and its union with the north in 1990.
Support for renewed independence in south Yemen runs deep in Daleh.
Source: AFP