Sana'a, Yemen - Yemeni police raided the headquarters of a daily newspaper in the southern port city of Aden on Wednesday in an attempt arrest its editor-in-chief, the paper's managing editor said.

Anti-riot police opened fire on the building in the Crater neighbourhood of Aden, wounding three guards, Basharahil Hisham Basharahil, managing editor of the al-Ayyam daily told the German Press Agency dpa.

He said a passer-by was killed in the shootout, adding that police forces also fired tear gas canisters at the building that also houses the editor's family home.

Police officials in Aden said police opened fire after armed guards fired at them.

They said the raid was carried out under an arrest warrant for the editor after he refused to attend court hearings in the capital Sana'a into a land dispute involving Basharahil.

Basharahil, however, said the raid was part of the crackdown on the independent daily over its coverage of the recent violence in southern Yemen.

Last week, the Information Ministry seized tens of thousands of copies of al-Ayyam daily and seven independent weeklies for publishing reports deemed by the authorities as "harming national unity."

Editors of the eight papers were summoned by the Press and Publication Prosecution for interrogation earlier this week.

Officials have said the ban was to curb the "anti-unity" reporting in the wake of the recent violent protests that engulfed cities in three southern provinces, leaving dozens of casualties among protesters and security forces.

The protests were called by southern separatists, who want the south to secede from the rest of Yemen.

The violence highlights the increasing tensions between southern and northern Yemen, 15 years after a civil war in 1994 that ended with the defeat of the southern military by northern forces led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh. North and South Yemen were united in 1990.

Southerners have often complained of discrimination since the 1994 war.(dpa)