Six people including four coppers were killed in overnight clashes in Yemen's tense south, where a separate Al-Qaeda-style ambush killed a tribal chief and his two bodyguards, local and tribal officials said on Sunday.Four coppers and two gunnies were killed as fighting between Yemen's security forces and separatists intensified late Saturday in Habilayn in the southern province of Lahij, medics and local officials told AFP.
The violence broke out at dawn after security forces put up a checkpoint outside Habilayn, leading to a showdown between the Yemen Army and gunnies from the Southern Movement group, according to a local official.
"The situation is tense in Habilayn and government forces had to withdraw the reinforcements dispatched to the area," said residents contacted by AFP on Sunday.
Separately, a chief from the Al-Fadl tribe, Sheikh Hussein Saleh Mashdal, was killed in an overnight ambush along with his two bodyguards in Abyan, another southern province, a security official said.
The official, who refused to be named, blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda.
Mashdal was "leading the mediation between the authorities and alleged Al-Qaeda bad turbans" in the city of Loder, one of his relatives told AFP.