Suspected Al-Qaida militants killed nine Yemeni soldiers in two separate ambush attacks on their convoys in the southern province of Abyan, a military official said on Sunday.

"A military reinforcement convoy coming from (the main southern city of) Aden was ambushed south of (the provincial capital) Zinjibar on Saturday killing six and wounding others," said the official.

Protesters, armed for the first time since demonstrations began in January, clashed Thursday with security forces in the flashpoint city of Taez, witnesses told Agence France Presse.

Witnesses said the clashes took place near the presidential palace and near a post held by the Republican Guard, an elite army unit loyal to embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh and led by his son Ahmed.

Gunbattles raged Wednesday on the streets of Yemen's capital, killing 39 people, witnesses said as a truce between security forces and tribesmen collapsed, residents fled and embassies bolted their doors.

A medic at Jumhuriya hospital said 37 people, most of them combatants, were killed in overnight clashes in Sanaa, while an Agence France Presse photographer said the bodies of two other tribesmen were taken to Al-Ulum hospital during the day.

Fierce fighting erupted around the Sanaa home of dissident tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar on Tuesday as a truce that ended deadly clashes last week broke down, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

There wrere also heavy exchanges between the tribesmen and loyalist troops around the headquarters of the military police and the official Saba news agency, as well as in a major thoroughfare, the correspondent said.

Yemeni opposition tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar said on Friday that there is a truce between his fighters and security forces in Sanaa, but he is ready for war if the embattled president chooses.

"There is a truce between us and (President) Ali Abdullah Saleh" for mediation to take place, said Ahmar, head of the powerful Hashid federation, at a funeral for 30 of his fighters killed in clashes with Saleh's security forces in the capital.

Security forces in the Yemeni capital battled heavily armed supporters of the country's most powerful tribal leader on Thursday as President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered the tribesman's arrest.

The leader, Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, in turn accused Saleh of dragging Yemen into civil war, speaking after hours of clashes late on Wednesday and overnight in which at least 24 people were killed.

An ammunition store belonging to the powerful al-Ahmar tribe blew up in the Yemeni capital Sanaa killing 28 people, the defense ministry's 26sep.net news website said on Thursday.

"Twenty-eight people were killed in an explosion at an ammunition store belonging to Hamid al-Ahmar" in Sanaa, 26sep.net said in a text message.

Tribesmen loyal to a powerful opposition chief have taken control of state news agency Saba in Sanaa, a high-ranking official and witnesses said on Wednesday, as fighting in the Yemeni capital resumed.

Clashes between security forces and Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar's tribesmen broke out in Sanaa on Monday and have left at least 44 people dead, according to an Agence France Presse tally based on reports by medics, the government and tribesmen.

Shelling in Yemen's capital killed five supporters of a powerful chieftain on Tuesday, his tribe said, as clashes intensified between embattled President Ali Abdullah Saleh's security forces and tribesmen seeking his ouster.

In the second successive day of fighting, a source close to tribal chief Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar told Agence France Presse that "an armored vehicle stationed near the interior ministry fired shells and killed five people" outside his home.

An official from the six-nation Gulf bloc confirmed its secretary general will head to Yemen Saturday ahead of the planned signing of a deal it brokered aimed at ending months of deadly protests.

Gulf Cooperation Council secretary general Abdullatif al-Zayani "will travel to Sanaa on Saturday" and "the signature of the plan will take place in his presence on Sunday," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.