Aden: A car containing explosives blew up while trying to attack a presidential palace in southern Yemen on Saturday, killing at least 26 people and injuring several others, according to witnesses and medics.
The attack, apparently by a suicide bomber, happened in Hadramout, far from the capital of Sana’a, where Yemen's new president took an oath of office on Saturday.
Yemen's south is a turbulent region where secessionists are seeking to revive a socialist southern state and where an active wing of Al Qaida has taken root.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi sworn in as president
Earlier, longtime Yemeni vice president Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi took the oath of office as president on Saturday ahead of formal handover of power by veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Hadi pledged to "preserve the country's unity, independence and territorial integrity" in a swearing-in ceremony in parliament broadcast live by state television.
Saleh, who arrived back in Sana'a from medical treatment in the United States earlier Saturday, is to formally transfer the reins of power in a ceremony at the presidential palace on Monday.
The handover will put the seal on a hard-won November transfer of power deal, under which Saleh agreed to step down in return for a controversial promise of immunity from prosecution over the deaths of hundreds of people during 10 months of protests against his 33-year rule.
Official results released late Friday from a Tuesday presidential election in which Hadi's name was the only one on the ballot paper gave him 99.8 per cent of valid votes cast.
