Less than a week after the president and prime minister of Yemen resigned in the face of demands by Shiite Houthis rebels who held the presidential palace, the U.S. resumed its drone offensive against al-Queda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). The strike was in the oil-rich province of Marib east of the Yemen capital of Sanaa, often referred to as “the capital of al-Queda.” Reports of fatalities were unconfirmed, although a spokesman for al-Queda told the Associated Press that two Yemeni, one a teenaged boy, and a Saudi were killed in the strike.

The action confirmed the intention of the U.S. to continue anti-terrorism operations in Yemen despite the uncertainty created by the fall of President Hadi’s government on Jan. 22. Col. Steve Warren, a spokesman for the Pentagon, admitted that although the drone attacks and training of Yemeni troops four will go forward, “they are curtailed in some cases.”

On the same day, the U.S. State Department announced that the embassy in the Yemen capital city of Sanaa was closed to the public citing the resignations and “ongoing security concerns.” The department went on to repeat its travel advisory warning, “Americans who remain in Yemen are  vulnerable to kidnappings and terrorist attacks.”

According to a statement released by the embassy on Monday, it will be staffed with reduced personnel to handle emergency cases involving U.S. citizens, and plans to return to full operation as soon as it is possible to do so safely. The U.S. Navy repositioned two ships, the an amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and the USS Fort McHenry, a dock landing ship, shifting them to the Red Sea in order to be closer to Sanaa. Both ships are manned with Marines.

The U.S. has used Yemen as a base of operations to fight AQAP in the Arab Peninsula, the group taking credit for the attacks at the Paris offices of satirical newspaper, “Charlie Hebdo,” on Jan. 7. Former Yemen President Hadi was considered a solid ally and was said to have approved each drone strike launched by the U.S. The drone operation is headquartered inside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, with training taking place far to the south in Lahj province, which borders the Gulf of Aden at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Neither location has been under fire from the Houthis.

The turmoil in Yemen has raised questions about President Obama’s intention to use the relationship with Yemen as a model for fighting IS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), rather than deploying U.S. troops to the area. “This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years,” Obama said on September 10. The president added, “The alternative would be for us to play whack-a-mole every time there is a terrorist actor inside of any given country.”

The U.S. – Yemen partnership has fed sectarian tensions in Yemen as Hadi used U.S. aid to fight the Houthis to the north of the capital near the Saudi border, which may have served to fuel the group’s anti-American stance and its attack on the capital. Hadi’s focus on the Houthis also led to a renewed presence of al-Queda in the primarily Sunni south of Yemen where AQAP’s took over several towns two years ago. The Muslim Brotherhood boasts its own well-armed militias and has a longstanding hatred of the Houthis adding to what remains a Sunni-Shiite struggle to be considered the “true” faith and impose a particular interpretation of Islam on the entire region.