Four soldiers killed in south Yemen ambush

Sana'a: Suspected separatists killed four soldiers and wounded 13 including a senior security official in two attacks, officials said yesterday, part of a wave of unrest that has raised fears of a sustained separatist insurgency.

Separatism in the south is one of three major security challenges facing Yemen, which also has a fragile ceasefire with Shiite rebels in the north and is running a campaign against a potent wing of Al Qaida militants.

In one of the latest attacks, gunmen ambushed a security patrol in the flashpoint province of Lahej late on Monday, killing four soldiers and wounding nine, a Defence Ministry website said, citing a regional security director.

In the other assault on Monday evening, suspected secessionists attacked military sites in the southern city of Dalea with rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, a Yemeni official said. A provincial security director was wounded along with three soldiers.

Violence in the south has increased in recent months, with separatist ambushes and government crackdowns leading to many deaths on both sides.

North and south Yemen formally united in 1990, but many in the south, where most of Yemen's oil facilities are located, complain northerners exploit the south's resources and discriminate against southern citizens.

The impoverished Arabian Peninsula state, neighbour to top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and located on a major shipping lane, has faced international pressure to quell domestic conflicts in order to focus on quashing Al Qaida.

Yemen has been a focus of Western security concerns after a string of attacks attributed to the Yemen-based regional arm of Al Qaida.