Source: CBC Radio The Current

This week, rebel fighters of Yemen—the Houthis—attacked the president's residence. It seems President Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi barely had much power anyway. Yemen is a patchwork quilt of militias from Al Qaeda to the Houthis, whose support comes from Iran. All of which sets the stage for a confrontation that will make Western leaders sit up and notice ... nervously.

The violence in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, has pushed the government to the brink, and what's happening inside the small country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, will almost certainly reverberate across the globe.

Its neighbor, Saudi Arabia, is wary of Houthi rebels with Iranian backing gaining the upper hand.

And as for the rest of the world, there was a vivid reminder in Paris this month that Yemen remains home to one of the most vicious terror cells on the globe—Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—or AQAP—having claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo.

Farea al-Muslimi is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center and an expert on Yemen and Gulf state politics. He was in Sanaa, Yemen.

Politics in Yemen can be complicated and fluid at the best of times. And it's not a country with a strong international media presence. That all adds up to make the country a rather opaque place to the rest of the world.

Laura Kasinof is a freelance journalist who has lived in and reported extensively from Yemen. She is also the author of "Don't Be Afraid of the Bullets: An Accidental War Correspondent in Yemen." Laura Kasinof was in Washington, DC.

This segment was produced by CBC Radio The Current's Howard Goldenthal and Naheed Mustafa.