A car bomb attack on the convoy of a Yemeni military official in the southern port city of Aden killed at least six people and wounded several others on Wednesday, military officials said.
The head of security forces of Lahaj province Saleh al-Sayed survived the assassination attempt, three military officials said. Two of them said at least five civilians and one military officer were killed and six others were seriously wounded in the attack.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but al Qaeda militants have stepped up their operations in south Yemen recently. At least 10 Yemeni soldiers were killed there in two separate attacks last week.
Instability in the south, where the Saudi-backed government is based, complicates international efforts to end the seven-year-old conflict. Several attacks have been recorded despite a ceasefire agreement between the Saudi-led coalition and the Iran-aligned Houthis in the north.
Sayed is Lahaj's commander of the military units of the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC), a force built and trained by the United Arab Emirates.
The STC is nominally part of the Saudi-led coalition which intervened in Yemen in 2015 after the Houthi movement ousted the internationally recognized government from the capital, Sanaa. But STC has also fought its allies in the Yemeni government as it seeks the independence of south Yemen.
The multifaceted war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands of people and pushed millions to the brink of famine.