'Qaeda' attacks kill at least 10 Yemen police: officials

SANAA: Suspected al Qaeda militants, including a suicide bomber, killed at least 10 Yemeni police Wednesday in attacks on security forces in the restive country, officials said.

The wave of violence in the central town of Baida targeted a command centre, a police post and an army checkpoint.

Nine police were killed in the suicide car bombing alone, an official at Al-Thawra hospital told AFP.

That attack, against the command centre, was thought to have been carried out by a militant identified as Abu Dujana al-Lahji, said a security official in the region.

It came shortly after a meeting of tribal chiefs -- some of them with links to al Qaeda -- who decided to "respond to the increased presence of Shiite Huthi rebels in Baida," the official added.

The heads of the Sunni Muslim tribes believe that members of the security services in Baida are sympathetic to the Huthis, who overran the capital Sanaa on September 21 and have since taken control of other parts of Yemen.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which the United States considers the global jihadist network's most dangerous branch, has also vowed to fight the Huthi rebels in defence of Sunnis.

Impoverished Yemen, which borders oil-rich Saudi Arabia, is a key US ally in the fight against al Qaeda, which has carried out persistent attacks on the security forces.