DUBAI: Thirteen fighters were killed in an exchange of artillery fire between pro-government forces and separatists in the southern province of Abyan, military sources told AFP on Saturday.

The Southern Transitional Council lost eight men, including two officers, and six others were wounded late Friday in the latest outbreak of violence between the nominal allies in Yemen's civil war, an STC source said. A military source on the Yemeni government side said that five fighters from its ranks were among the dead. The STC is a separatist organisation that wants the south to secede from the rest of the country, even while it is allied with the central government in a fight against their common foe, the Iran-backed Huthi rebels, in Yemen's civil war.