SANAA, June 7, (AFP): Six people were killed and 17 were wounded on Monday in what witnesses described as the “indiscriminate” shelling by the Yemeni army of the southern town of Daleh, a Southern Movement leader said.
“Six people were killed and 17 others were wounded” in Daleh, which is currently witnessing “severe tension,” a leader from the Southern Movement told AFP.
A hospital official earlier said that four civilians were killed and at least 11 others wounded.
Local officials said the shelling, from army positions around the town, followed clashes in the town centre between police and armed supporters of the Southern Movement, a coalition of groups wanting greater autonomy or independence for the region.
Witnesses said the army had shelled the town centre “indiscriminately.”
“The army shelled the city, and 14 homes were hit,” Yahya Ghaleb al-Shuaybi, another Southern Movement leader, told AFP.
Local officials said that Daleh was completely paralysed by a general strike called by the Southern Movement. The strike was observed in a string of southern towns, including Habilayn and Tur al-Baha in Lahij province, and Lawdar, Mudiyah and Al-Qaar in Abyan province, local officials said.
There were no reports of clashes except in Daleh.
Shuaybi said the strike is observed “on the first Monday of every month, to protest the blockade of Daleh imposed since the month of March, to demand the liberation of detainees, and to call for the independence of the south.”
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced an amnesty for southern separatists and Shiite rebels in a May 21 speech marking the 20th anniversary of the unification of Yemen.
Some 134 southern activists have been released since the announcement.
But “the arrests of southern activists continue” despite the amnesty, Shuaybi said.
South Yemen was independent from the British withdrawal in 1967 until it united with the north in 1990. The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short civil war that ended with the region overrun by northern troops.
Residents of the south, who complain of discrimination by the Sanaa government in the allocation of resources, hold frequent protests, which periodically result in clashes.
On May 29, the defence ministry’s 26sep.net news website reported that three Yemeni soldiers were killed in two ambushes by southern separatists that week.
Another Yemeni soldier was killed and four wounded on May 15 when militants opened fire on a military vehicle in Lahij province, 26sep.net said.
In addition to unrest in the south, Yemen — the Arab world’s poorest country — is also contending with threats from al-Qaeda and the aftermath of a six-year uprising by Zaidi Shiite rebels in the far north.
Meanwhile, a man suspected of being an al-Qaeda militant behind a 2007 bombing that killed eight Spanish tourists surrendered to Yemeni authorities, the defence ministry’s 26sep.net news website reported on Monday.
Hamza Ali Saleh al-Dhayani’s “surrender (on Sunday) comes after the tightening of the noose on al-Qaeda members” in Marib province and “painful blows they have received,” 26sep.net quoted Marib’s governor as saying.
His surrender was made possible by cooperation between local security forces, dignitaries and citizens, the governor, Sheikh Naji bin Ali al-Zaidi, said.
Dhayani is suspected of involvement in a suicide car bombing in July 2007 that killed eight Spanish tourists and two Yemenis at an archaeological site in Marib.
He is also accused of involvement in a March 2008 bomb attack that killed a policeman and a student in Sanaa. al-Qaeda claimed the attack, saying it was aimed at the US embassy.
Dhayani is the second suspected al-Qaeda member to surrender in Marib in recent days.
Another, Ghalib al-Zaidi, gave himself up to authorities in the province on Saturday, a security official told AFP.
Marib, east of the capital Sanaa, is one of al-Qaeda’s strongholds in Yemen.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and has been the scene of several attacks claimed by the group on foreign missions, tourist sites and oil installations.
al-Qaeda has suffered setbacks amid US pressure on the government to crack down, but attacks by the group continue.
On Saturday, suspected al-Qaeda members killed a Yemeni colonel and two other soldiers in the Marib, tribal and military sources said.