By Mohammed Ghobari SANAA (Reuters) - Yemen's president removed the commander of the elite Republican Guard, a powerful political foe, from the military on Wednesday, state television reported, in an apparent move to unify the divided armed forces under his own control. The television read out orders by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi appointing Brigadier General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is the son of Hadi's predecessor, former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, as ambassador to the United Arab Emirates.

South Yemen leaders vowed at a meeting in Dubai to continue talks on participating in a national dialogue this month to end the country's political crisis, as a separatist faction withdrew from the meeting. "We have decided to continue the meetings to make a decision on our participation" in the UN-brokered talks which will begin on March 18, said Salem Saleh Mohammed on Sunday. He did not say where the meetings would be held. Southern leaders met in Dubai late on Saturday in a gathering attended by UN envoy to Yemen Jamal Benomar.

A Yemeni court lifted a freeze on the assets of two former security chiefs on Tuesday after they finally agreed to appear in court over a deadly 2012 suicide bombing in Sanaa, the judge told AFP. It was not immediately clear whether the two men, both appointees of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, would face charges over the bombing, which rocked the capital shortly after the veteran strongman was forced from power, or would merely be required to testify. "We have cancelled the asset freeze after the two men ended their defiance of the court," judge Hilal Mahfal told AFP.

A Yemeni military aircraft ploughed into a building in a residential neighbourhood of Sanaa on Tuesday, killing the pilot and at least nine civilians, medics and witnesses said. Medics said the toll, which included two children and three women and left another 22 injured, was expected to rise Several hours after the crash rescue teams were still sifting through the rubble for survivors, the AFP correspondent said.