Salih and his Enemies

As everyone knows by now, Salih has essentially three main sets of enemies- AQAP, the Huthis, and southern secessionists. As many expected, he is conflating the three, using the world’s attention to al-Qaeda as a means of painting his other enemies with the same brush.

This is not new, though, nor is it merely cynical. There is a paranoid style to Yemeni politics. I think there is part of Salih that believes the three are connected, not exactly literally, but certainly in the threat they pose to him and the state (the two aren’t exactly unconnected).

I spoke of this in length over the summer, in a really weird post that seems like it is about Thomas Pynchon, but ends up being about Yemen.