Guest Thinkers

Well one talk down and one to go – although tomorrow’s is on the 1994 civil war. But while I was busy dissecting the Siege of San’a others had more […]

After weeks of anticipation, at least in the nerdy circles that I run in, the ICG report on Sa’dah is finally out. I haven’t read the whole report yet – […]

A few days ago I mentioned that the current situation in Yemen is much more complicated than the traditional north/south dichotomy. Now, President Salih in a meeting with people from […]

Foreign Policy has published a wonderful series of photos of Yemen by Sandy Choi – check them out.

I am not sure what impact this will have on Yemen. I feel that so much has happened since his abduction/arrest that it is difficult to gauge what role he […]

On February 19 we posted on Nasir al-Wahayshi’s speech here. At the time one of the things that most intrigued me – besides a specific term, I have already blogged […]

I have seen the Huthis accused with any number of things, but the charge of black magic is a new one.

Well, I guess the south of Yemen isn’t really considered Dixie, but I also hate coming up with titles, so we’re going to stick with it. Over at the BBC […]

Over the weekend I read one of the best – in English – articles on Sa’dah that I have seen in a long time and one of the worst.First, the […]

Christopher Davidson:“For the international community there’s enormous significance as well as is the case with most domestic struggles in the Middle East, there’s something of a proxy war between Iraq […]

Mareb Press publishes what claims to be the most accurate list of Yemenis in US prisons both Guantanamo and Bagram. The list is available here. I have written previously about […]

For those of you interested in more on the confessions of Muhammad al-‘Awfi, and judging from my in-box there are a number of you, should all check out this transcript […]

Given all the news stories about Yemen being published – some very good and others not so good – I thought it would be helpful to give a brief run […]

There is a tendency when talking about al-Qaeda to over-exaggerate the threat and hastily abandon nuance in an attempt to make headlines, I’m sure I am as guilty of this […]

There has been a great deal of confusion over what exactly is going in Yemen, and whether or not the country is releasing AQ suspects. On the surface, this looks […]

There are two new articles out on Yemen both asking roughly the same question: Is Yemen the next Afghanistan. The first by Diane Tucker of the Huffington Post relies mostly […]

Clashes broke out in Aden today ahead of the May 22 anniversary. News Yemen has coverage here and Mareb Press takes up the issue here, claiming that around 25 people […]

Bad timing with schedules today, as we are both, for various reasons, going to be away from computers, at least sporadically. With that in mind, we invite our readers to […]

It is late on a Friday and things are getting a bit wild, as the AFP attempts to put a new spin on an old cliche, writing: “The authorities in […]

These are heady times, for sure. We would like to welcome to the ranks of suddenly-confident pontificators one Mr. Oliver North, writing in a column for Fox News. Col. North […]

Both Brian and I have taken a couple of steps back over the past couple of days (for different reasons) but also to contemplate potential changes to Waq al-waq and […]

We are ignoring numerous things here this week – the goings on in Radfan, the escalation with the al-Huthis in the North, the strange news regarding Tariq al-Fadhli – but […]

As most of our readers know, the long-expected sixth Sa’dah war has been going on for the past few weeks. I was in Yemen when it started and spent some […]

I caught the tail end of a report on al-Jazeera this morning about the happenings in the south – it did not look good. News Yemen is reporting at least […]

UPI is out with a new article that makes the unfounded and ridiculous claim that Saudi Arabia is fighting the Huthis because it is worried about al-Qaeda. The level of […]

There have been a number of articles about Yemen in recent days. (Waq al-waq even put in an appearance on the pages of the Washington Post.) Most have been nonsense, […]

Muhammad al-Ahmadi, one of the best young Yemeni journalists, has another excellent piece on the December 17 raids in this week’s edition of al-Ghad. (As usual, with Muhammad’s writings – […]

Three articles in three major publications- yes, TNR is still a major publication, at least in my heart, and people do in fact read the Huffington Post. And then, of […]

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 […]

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 […]