Six people including four policemen were killed in overnight clashes in Yemen's tense south, where a separate Qaeda-style ambush killed a tribal chief and his two bodyguards, local and tribal officials told AFP on Sunday.
Four policemen and two militants 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.
In an earlier tally, several officials told AFP that two policemen and a militant were killed in the clashes on Saturday.
The violence broke out at dawn after security forces put up a checkpoint outside Habilayn, leading to a showdown between Yemen's army and militants from the Southern Movement, 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 Qaeda militants" in the city of Loder, one of his relatives told AFP. Fierce clashes in Loder between suspected Al-Qaeda militants and the army last month left at least 33 dead - 19 militants, 11 soldiers, and three civilians - according to an AFP tally based on official and medical sources.