Soldier killed in Yemen attack

A Yemeni soldier was killed and four other people wounded in an attack on a military vehicle in the southern province of Daleh.

A Yemeni soldier was killed and four other people wounded today in an attack on a military vehicle in the southern province of Daleh that provincial officials blamed on separatist militants. Members of the separatist "movement destroyed a military vehicle in the al Malah district of Daleh. One soldier was killed and four other people wounded, among them soldiers," one provincial official said.

It was the first reported clash with security forces in the south since President Ali Abdullah Saleh last week offered an amnesty to dissidents in the formerly independent region. Following that announcement, authorities on Monday released 98 people jailed during previous unrest in the south in a bid to calm mounting separatism. The region was independent from 1967, when British forces pulled out, until 1990, when its communist leaders decided to unite with the north.

Southern leaders led a brief breakaway in 1994 which sparked a civil war that ended with northern troops overrunning the region. Over the past year, there have been increasingly bloody protests against perceived discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources. * AFP