Woman dies as house shelled in Yemen fighting

Antara News, Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Aden, Yemen (ANTARA News/AFP) - Fighting between the Yemeni army and militants in the southern town of Habilayn killed a woman and injured 11 people, seven of them civilians, medics and the military told AFP on Monday.

Witnesses said Adhba Yahia Hussein died on Sunday night after her home was "hit by artillery shrapnel," adding the blast also wounded six of her family members.

Residents said the shrapnel exploded during a battle pitting separatist insurgents, barricaded inside the town, against armed forces encircling Habilayn, a stronghold of the separatist Southern Movement.

A medical official said seven wounded people were admitted late Sunday to the nearby Radfan hospital in Lahij province. The army said four of its soldiers had also been wounded in Habilayn`s skirmishes.

Yemen`s army has regained control over several villages surrounding the town after gunmen retreated from the area, witnesses said. A security officer told AFP the fighting eased on Monday afternoon.

In neighbouring Shabwa province, a judicial policeman was killed and another wounded on Monday in an attack carried out by three hooded men in a car, a security official said, pinning the blame on Al-Qaeda.

Authorities in Shabwa earlier arrested 12 supporters of the Southern Movement for chanting separatist slogans during a pro-government rally, said a local official.

In addition to grappling with an increasingly violent southern separatist movement, the Sanaa government is battling a growing presence of Al-Qaeda fighters in the south.

South Yemen was independent from the time of the 1967 British withdrawal from Aden until the region united with the north in 1990.

The south seceded in 1994, sparking a short-lived civil war that ended with it being overrun by northern troops