Yemen's Rebel Group Disbands Government and Takes Power

The Shi’ite rebel group that controls the Yemeni capital dissolved parliament on Wednesday, bringing to an abrupt and potentially explosive end the political deadlock among rival factions.

The Houthi movement, which overran Sana’a in September, had been overseeing talks to form a new government since the group’s aggression prompted President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to resign last month. But with the lapse of a Wednesday deadline, the Houthis moved to act on their own terms.

In a televised statement, the rebels said they would form a five-member presidential council to lead the country during a transitional period of up to two years, proclaiming the developments marked “a new era that will take Yemen to safe shores,” according to the Associated Press.

But the move threatens to plunge the fractured nation deeper into sectarian turmoil. While the Houthis, members of a minority group of Shi‘ite Muslims from the north, have seen a recent surge in support, their power grab risks further alienating Sunni tribesman and empowering al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the powerful affiliate of al-Qaeda that controls swathes of the country’s south.

As TIME reported when tensions spilled over in Sana’a last month, the rise of the Houthi movement and the removal of a key ally in Hadi has posed a particularly acute problem for the U.S. in its fight against al-Qaeda:

For years, the U.S. has struck at AQAP in Yemen with drones and Special Ops, but it has also invested in the Yemeni government to help repel AQAP on the ground, pouring nearly $1 billion of economic, military and humanitarian aid into the country since 2011. That strategy has been hailed as a success by President Barack Obama and was used as a blueprint for the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS). But as the government has focused on the Houthi rebellion, AQAP has regained a foothold in southern Yemen. U.S. officials now fear that a prolonged power vacuum in Sana‘a could give AQAP free rein to grow—and to pose new threats to the West.

The Houthis, though, are no friends of the Sunni al-Qaeda militants. The group, which is believed to be backed by the Shi‘ite leadership of Iran, has clashed with al-Qaeda in Yemen and criticized Hadi’s failure to quash Sunni extremism. The problem for the U.S.’s counterterrorism operations is that it also has no interest in an alliance with the U.S.; it has been equally critical of Hadi’s dependence on U.S. support, and it’s motto reads in part, “Death to Israel, Death to America.”

So far, Washington appears to be adapting to developments in Sana’a. A drone strike on Jan. 31 killed a top al-Qaeda cleric, and a senior U.S. official indicated the U.S. maintains intelligence ties with the Houthis. But whether the Houthis can maintain stability and prevent a prolonged sectarian conflict remains to be seen.

Write to Noah Rayman at noah.rayman@time.com.