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Mass protests have convulsed Yemen in recent months, as the country's established opposition parties have joined large street demonstrations in calling for Ali Abdullah Saleh to abdicate the presidency. April Longley Alley, Crisis Group's Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula, looks at what distinguishes Yemen's protest movement from others throughout North Africa and the Middle East.

Unprecedented protests and the regime’s heavy-handed response risk pushing Yemen into widespread violence but also could and should be a catalyst for long overdue, far reaching political reform.

Away from media headlines, a war has been raging on and off in Yemen’s northern governorate of Saada since 2004, flaring up in adjacent regions and, in 2008, reaching the outskirts of the capital, Sanaa.

On 3 November 2002, an unmanned U.S. “Predator” aircraft hovering in the skies of Yemen fired a Hellfire missile at a car carrying a suspected al-Qaeda leader, four Yemenis said to be members of the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army, and a Yemeni-American who, according to U.S. authorities, had recruited volunteers to attend al-Qaeda training camps.