SANAA
During my first week in Sanaa, al-Qaeda bombs the main square, as the Houthis, in power for only a few weeks, are staging a rally.
"The power of the explosion threw people in the air," a witness tells me when I arrive on the scene soon afterwards. "There were many dead children and old men. So many people." A suicide bomber is blamed for the carnage.
The Houthi slogan is posted on walls across Sanaa. It's an Iranian-inspired political chant from the days of that country's 1979 revolution and reads: "God is great. Death to America. Death to Israel. God curse the Jews. Victory for Islam.