One soldier killed in south Yemen ambush

Source: AFP , 28/08/2010

SANAA — Gunmen killed a Yemeni soldier and wounded three others in an ambush in the southern province of Lahij, the defence ministry's news website reported on Saturday.

"Armed outlaw elements... opened fire on members of a patrol killing the soldier Bilal Hael" and wounding three others late on Friday, 26sep.net quoted security official Lieutenant Colonel Salah al-Dawoodi as saying.

A committee was set up to investigate the incident, Dawoodi said.

Separately, the interior ministry called for tighter security at intelligence headquarters throughout the country.

The ministry said it had put security units on the alert, in a statement posted on its website, and stressed "the importance of increasing security vigilance and deploying patrols in the capital and the provinces, in addition to tightening security measures on vital facilities and buildings."

Earlier this month, armed men ambushed the chief of the Lahij intelligence service's investigations department, who was killed in a hail of bullets.

On Tuesday, gunmen shot dead four policemen and wounded two others in an ambush in Zinjibar, in neighbouring Abyan province.

South Yemen, where many residents complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources, is the site of frequent protests and periodic unrest.

The region is also feared to have become a base for Al-Qaeda militants to regroup under the network's local franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).