Yemeni soldier killed in protesters' attack

Ten of the wounded were soldiers and the rest civilians, witnesses said of the attack in Mukalla which followed clashes between police and protesters at an opposition rally overnight.

Cars and shops were attacked during the earlier flare-up in the south coast town. Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

The clashes followed a rally to mark a civil war in 1994 when the authorities under President Ali Abdullah Saleh crushed southern forces.

The separate states of North and South Yemen had united under a fragile political agreement in 1990. Many southerners continue to talk about marginalisation.

Witnesses and websites said speakers at the rally complained that thousands of former government officials and soldiers from the south lost their jobs after the 1994 fighting, when some southern leaders went into exile.

"There are some obscure ideas around about turning the clock back," Yemen's Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi told a government rally in Aden, capital of the former South Yemen.

"Yes, there is financial and administrative corruption and yes, there are negative points. But we have to deal with them within the framework of Yemeni unity," he said in the comments carried by pan-Arab broadcaster Al Arabiya.

The Arabian peninsula country of 19 million faces al Qaeda attacks, sporadic violence by Shi'ite rebels in the north and lawlessness among tribes.

In recent months, Somali pirates have staged numerous raids on ships passing through the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping lane for oil and cargo.

Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, fears instability could allow Yemen to become a staging post for the revival of a 2003-2006 campaign by al Qaeda militants to topple the U.S.-allied ruling Al Saud family.

(Reporting by Mohammed al-Mukhashef, writing by Inal Ersan and Andrew Hammond; editing by Robert Woodward)