Skip to content

All Articles


According to some headlines this morning, anyway. The US and Yemen are reviewing possible attacks in what is described as retaliation for the attempted Christmas bombing. While this is probably […]
I like to spend Sunday afternoons on the couch with a football game (US or European) or a novel maybe something by Rushdie or McEwan, but sometimes the outside world […]
Neither Gregory nor I are economists. My idea of economic analysis is “do I have enough money for cigarettes? (answer: usually no) But this morning I am going to channel […]
The murky picture surrounding Yemen’s counterterrorism raids yesterday is now beginning to clear up a bit. It seems as though I was not the only one who was a bit […]
You can hear both Greg and I on this segment of today’s The World, on PRI. We are talking about Yemen, in case you were wondering.
Last week, before all the craziness, I asked whatever happened to Ali Muhammad al-Hisam, the kidnapped deputy director of political security, whom AQAP had threatened to execute in 48 hours […]
If you are anything like me then you can’t wait to read each new issue of the New York Review of Books. The latest issue, which arrived in my mailbox […]
For those too cheap or otherwise unable to buy the latest issue of the American Interest but still want to read the article you can access it here. The site […]
Foreign Policy, in collaboration with the Fund for Peace, has published their annual “Failed States Index“, a highly scientific ranking of failed states. In what can only be interpreted as […]
The main consultant who worked on the ICG report on Sa’dah sent me this thoughtful response to my post earlier today:Regarding the fact that the report considers the Saada conflict […]
Dina Temple-Raston, a reporter a NPR who I greatly respect, has this new piece up entitled: “For al–Qaeda in Yemen, Targeting the US is Personal.”On the surface a story and […]
In an effort to continue to expand Waq al-waq, we have created another sticky on the side of videos of AQ in Yemen – for those that can’t get enough.
Brian noted yesterday that we have been neglecting the south and southern issues here at Waq al-waq and he is right, but that is not the only thing we have […]
I’ve been using “al-Houthi”, but Greg called and yelled at me for like 45 minutes and said to drop the “o”. He explained there aren’t any “o’s” in Arabic, and […]
In what one can only imagine was an awkward and stiltedly polite conversation, “Information Minister Hassan al-Lowzi has met with a delegation of Human Rights Watch headed by Joe Stork, […]
News Yemen reports on recent clashes, which led to the deaths of six soldiers, although an al-Huthi spokesman is denying the report. The spokesman is also warning the government against […]