SANAA, April 1, 2008 (AFP) - Dozens of people were arrested on Tuesday in southern Yemen, including opposition politicians, after two days of protests by local residents refused entry into the army, relatives said.

They said three politicians from the Yemen Socialist Party (YSP), the ruling party in former south Yemen, were among those held in a dawn swoop of activists suspected of inciting the protests in the provinces of Aden, Lahj and Dhaleh.

The three are YSP central committee member Ali Mounassar, YSP lawmaker Nasser al-Khobbaji and party activist Hassan Baoum.

The arrests, confirmed to AFP by sources close to the Yemeni security authorities, followed protests on Sunday and Monday in the towns of Dhaleh and Habilayn.

The demonstrators, who briefly blocked the road linking Sanaa to the southern port of Aden with burning tyres, said a number of youths from the region were not admitted into the army after responding to a recruitment campaign.

Security was beefed up around some vital facilities in the areas of unrest, where tensions were still running high on Tuesday, residents said.

Several protests have been held in south Yemen in past months to demand greater state assistance for more than 60,000 retirees from the military and civil service, most of whom insist they were forced into early retirement.

Residents of southern Yemen often complain of discrimination since a 1994 southern secession bid led by socialists, which sparked a two-month civil war and was crushed by northern forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.