A nation in chaos: What you need to know about Yemen

Yemen has been without clear leadership and potentially on the brink of armed conflict since Houthi rebels seized control of key government facilities, dissolved parliament, and placed the President under house arrest. President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi later resigned in protest.

There are competing political interests across the troubled Middle Eastern nation and how they play out will have implications that reverberate around the globe.

Many would-be jihadis from the West are recruited into al Qaeda through a slick English-language online magazine, Inspire, that’s run out of Yemen.

And U.S. officials consider the Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula the most dangerous branch of al Qaeda.

With that in mind, here are the things you need to know to make sure you’re up to date on what’s happening in Yemen.

What prompted the embassy decisions?

Chaos is good for terrorists and bad for Western anti-terror efforts.

The weaker the government, the easier it will be for al Qaeda to bring in people and train them for terrorism, which can be unleashed on the West.

Under the old government, the United States had an ally against the terrorist network.

With the chaotic situation in Yemen, Western efforts to hunt down al Qaeda are not impossible, but greatly hampered.

CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark, Raja Razek, Ralph Ellis and Nick Thompson contributed to this report.

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