Hadi had been under house arrest for a month after he resigned under pressure from Houthi rebels. But he escaped and released a statement saying he is still president, calling all political decisions made since September illegal and invalid.
Protesters called for Hadi, who is now in Aden, to stand against the Houthi coup.
Sanaa saw the largest demonstrations urging Hadi to end militant occupation of Sanaa.
“The Houthis thought they could not be stopped, and it only took hours for them to fall in the eyes of the people. Yemen has a president and the people will stand with him to uproot the Houthi militants from Sanaa,” Ali Al-Saedi, a protest organizer in Sanaa, told CNN.
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Also opposed to the Houthis is the Sunni terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which exerts influence over many rural areas across the country. AQAP vowed to attack Houthi loyalists nationwide last year.
Yemen’s political turmoil could have an impact on the United States’ fight against AQAP. The United States has long had a relationship with Yemen’s leaders, working with them to target AQAP militants.
It’s not clear what the Houthis’ takeover of Sanaa means for U.S. anti-terrorism efforts, but the drone program there still appears to be active. A U.S. drone strike killed senior AQAP cleric Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari and three other people in Shabwa province on January 31.
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Ed Payne, Ben Brumfield and Greg Botelho contributed to this report.
