3 Yemeni cops, 2 rebels killed in gunfight
Three Yemeni policemen were killed as their checkpoint came under fire in the northwestern region of Saada, shortly after a blast killed 18 people, tribal sources said on Saturday.
The attack on the checkpoint manned by special security forces late Friday in Munbah also left two policemen wounded. Two of the assailants were killed while four others escaped, the sources told AFP requesting anonymity.
Fighting between security forces and the Shia Huthi rebels erupted again overnight in the district of Muran, northwest of Saada, where insurgents attacked army posts with rockets, tribesmen in the region said.
Eighteen people, mostly soldiers, were killed in Yemen on Friday when a blast blamed by authorities on the insurgents exploded at the entrance to a mosque in the rebels' stronghold.
The renewed violence deals another blow to ongoing Qatari mediation to implement a peace deal between the government and the Zaidi rebels brokered in Doha in June 2007.
The rebels have been fighting to restore the Shia Zaidi imamate, which was overthrown in a 1962 republican coup in Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries.
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