ADEN: Gunmen killed three Yemeni soldiers and wounded seven others on Friday when they opened fire on a military base in the southern province of Abyan, a security official said.
The dawn attack targeted a military position in a suburb of the city of Zanjibar, said the official who requested anonymity, adding three of the soldiers suffered serious wounds.
The attackers, believed to have been three gunmen on motorbikes, managed to escape.
But a soldier who survived told News Yemen website the assailants arrived on three motorbikes and two minibuses and used machine guns, grenades and rocket-propelled grenades in the attack.
Most of the soldiers at the base, who numbered more than 20, managed to escape as they had been in a neighboring mosque for prayers at the time of the attack, he said.
It was unclear whether the assailants were southern secessionists or insurgents of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, which is strongly active in the south.
News Yemen said witnesses heard the gunmen chanting "God is greater" during the attack.
South Yemen, where many residents complain of discrimination in the distribution of resources on the part of the Sanaa government, was independent from 1967 until it joined with the north in 1990.
The region seceded in 1994, sparking a brief civil war that ended with it overrun by northern troops.
The Southern Movement, whose members want either independence or increased autonomy for the south, usually hold protests on Thursdays demanding the release of detained activists.
Friday’s attack came a day after four soldiers and a wanted southern militant were killed in a clash in Lahij province.
