One of the major challenges frustrating efforts to close Guantanamo is what to do with the nearly 100 Yemenis still in detention.The US is reluctant to release them back to […]
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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 […]
It is March 10, as I imagine it has been all day, but what I mean to say is that for a select group of people this marks the beginning […]
Also for those interested in videos, you can watch al-‘Ujayri’s mother on a new program on Yemeni television.
A bit more reading of Sada al-Malahim shows that what I received in an e-mail on Saturday dealing with an AQAP statement on al-‘Awfi is actually from the journal itself, […]
I swore and I swore and I swore that I wasn’t going to do this. No getting sucked back into the blog until serious (read: real) work is done. But […]
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.
The Ministry of the Interior is confirming that three hostages have been killed, but still no word on the fate of the the other six. This brief from the MOI […]
Well that didn’t last long. Nasir al-Wahayshi, the head of AQAP (who many people seem to under estimate, which I think is a mistake) has three articles in this issue, […]
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 […]
If the Yemeni government wants to ease tensions in the South it needs to be seen addressing some of the grievances in the South, at least that is the opinion […]
Tariq al-Shami, the GPC’s head of media, is arguing for links between the Huthis, al-Qaeda and the Southern movement, which once again turned violent in the past couple of days. […]
I am briefly breaking my self-enforced silence and blogging break to ask who the Washington Post’s Dana Priest is referring to in the following sentence:“U.S. military teams and intelligence agencies […]
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 […]
Al-Mansurah Prison in Aden, which hosts a number of different prisoners including al-Qaeda suspects, has recently increased security. Al-Mansurah last featured in some al-Qaeda media releases back in 2008 when […]
Given all the time and attention the Yemeni military has spent on the Arhab tribe recently, which we have followed here at Waq al-waq by also spending a great deal […]
John Brennan, counter-terrorism chief (via Ambinder)Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is an extension of al Qaeda core coming out of Pakistan. And, in my view, it is one of […]
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 […]
The news that Saudi Arabia is bombing targets inside Yemen and is becoming much more intimately involved in the Huthi conflict is sparking, as it should, a great deal of […]
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 […]
Al-Quds al-Arabi is the latest paper to feel the wrath of the Ministry of Information, as editions last week were confiscated by the government. This story by al-Tagheer (which has […]