Four killed in Aden polling chaos

Separatists who had vowed to mark Tuesday's presidential vote as a day of "civil disobedience" have seized half of the polling booths in Yemen's main southern city Aden, a government official said. "Half of the polling booths in Aden have been shut down after they were seized by gunmen from the Southern Movement," a local government official told AFP. Officials and medics also reported that at least four people were killed and 19 others injured Tuesday in armed attacks by pro- separatism militants on several of Aden's polling stations. Militants who opposed to the one-candidate presidential election attacked six polling stations in Aden after trading sporadic gunfire with Yemeni security forces, leaving at least four people killed and 19 others injured, the local security official said on condition of anonymity. The confrontations are still going on between the two sides in the Al-Mansoura and Al-Mualla districts in downtown Aden, the official said, adding that two polling stations were set on fire by the anti-election gunmen. Yemenis headed for polling stations Tuesday morning to vote for a successor to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, hoping to pull the impoverished country back from a possible civil war. More than 10 million eligible voters are expected to cast their ballots at about 29,000 polling stations across Yemen from 8am ( 5am GMT) to 6pm (3pm GMT), with over 100,000 soldiers guarding the process. However, a string of attacks on election committees flared up in the country's restive southern regions. Under a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal signed by Saleh and the opposition in November 2011 in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the outgoing president handed over power to his deputy, Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi, the only consensus candidate in Tuesday's poll, in return for immunity from prosecution. More than 20 polling stations in cities under the control of Al- Qaeda, separatist Southern Movement and Houthi-led Shiite rebels in the southern provinces of Abyan, Shabwa, Aden, Al-Djalee and Hajja and the northern provinces of Saada and Hajja were closed by anti-election groups. Yemen's new president will lead a two-year transitional government tasked with amending the constitution and holding parliamentary elections, according to the Gulf-brokered deal.