Gregory Johnsen
Near East Studies Scholar, Princeton University
Gregory Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Johnsen has written for a variety of publications on Yemen including, among others, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, The Independent, The Boston Globe, and The National. He is the co-founder of Waq al-Waq: Islam and Insurgency in Yemen Blog. In 2009, he was a member of the USAID's conflict assessment team for Yemen.
News Yemen has the round-up of Deputy Prime Minister for Defense and Security Affairs, Rashad al-‘Alimi, appearance before parliament. (He was only one day late – but to be fair […]
Like most of you, I’m off to enjoy a long-weekend. Posting will be sporadic.
I love Arab summits. This one featured a great deal that we won’t cover, but we will tell you that President Salih has taken his idea and gone home.One Yemeni […]
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 […]
Foreign Policy has published a wonderful series of photos of Yemen by Sandy Choi – check them out.
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 […]
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 – […]
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 […]
Even though there are a couple of things I am eager to blog about (and disagree with), particularly regarding some of the recommendations put out by the Center for Strategic […]
Issue 13 of Sada al-Malahim is out today, and while I won’t take the time to go through the whole journal (many other things to do), one thing did stand […]
Despite the recent truce between the government and the Huthis in the north, things are far from settled.Today, the Huthis announced that they were vacating 20 positions around the city […]
After threatening several times, I have finally added a “Yemeni reading list” in the post below and I will create a permanent link on the side. The list is based […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
I have seen the Huthis accused with any number of things, but the charge of black magic is a new one.
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 […]
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 – […]
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, […]
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 […]