Yemen Feature: Who are the Competing Factions? (Ferguson)

Soldiers & Pro-Government Tribesmen, 26 MayAll around the country, the challenges to Yemen's new government's authority are numerous --- and serious.

Yemen's new president, Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, was sworn into office this February after being the consensus candidate in a national referendum. He is meant to be overseeing a transition to full democracy in the country following a revolution that erupted in January 2011.

That revolution, however, spurred a violent power struggle between loyalists of the old regime --- the family of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who ruled for over 30 years - and defected factions of the military and tribes opposed to him.

As fighting broke out across the capital city, Sanaa, in 2011, various rebel groups throughout the country that had long been fighting the government, took advantage of the chaos to sweep across new swathes of territory.

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Yemen Feature: The Houthi Movement and the Revolution (Wells)

Walking last month into the Shabaab al-Sumud tent in Yemen's Maydan Taghayr --- Change Square --- I was greeted by eager faces and talkative qat chewers. "We love Americans," a Houthi supporter nodded his head vigorously, and, in doing so, revealed an enormous poster on the tent flap behind him on which the group's infamous slogan was inscribed: "God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews." Seeing my eyes widen, he offered, "We hate American policies, notpeople. The roots of the slogan lie in America's war on the Iraqi people and support for Israeli policies against the Palestinians. Let me tell you what it is that the Houthis want...."

Even the dedicated observer of Yemeni affairs can be forgiven for not fully grasping the complexity of the country's political milieu during this shaky revolutionary period.

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