Yemen troops kill southern activist: group

Aden: Yemeni troops shot dead a young Southern Movement activist Friday during a raid in the port city of Aden, sources in the pro-autonomy group said.

They said the troops were searching for secessionists at dawn when they opened fire on around a dozen activists who had come out into the street, killing one of them.

A medical source confirmed that the body of Mubarak Al Shabawani had been taken to a nearby hospital. It was not immediately clear how old he was.

The Southern Movement is an alliance of groups pressing for autonomy in the south, which was an independent country from the end of British colonial rule in 1967 to its unification with the north in 1990.

Hardline members of the alliance have called for outright secession.

On Thursday, three police were killed in two separate incidents in Southern Yemen, which is also home to a powerful Al Qaida affiliate.

In Hadramawt province, a bastion of Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, unidentified gunmen killed two police in an ambush and torched their vehicle, military sources said.

And in Abyan province, a policeman was shot dead as he returned to his barracks, the same sources said.