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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Also for those interested in videos, you can watch al-‘Ujayri’s mother on a new program on Yemeni television.
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 […]
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 […]
Al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Quds al-Arabi both devote their coverage of Yemen to yesterday’s death sentence handed down to the six al-Qaeda suspects. Following the sentencing it seems as though the […]
Friday is traditionally a slow news day in the Middle East, and today is no different. Al-Sharq al-Awsat has this piece on the protests this week, claiming that two soldiers […]
Over at Foreign Policy.com Ian Bremmer tells us why we should care about Yemen’s future – a subject close to Waq al-waq’s heart. I disagree with his take on the […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
You heard it here first. The new issue of Sada al-Malahim should be out soon. Of great curiosity this time will be whether or not the organization addresses al-Awfi’s confessions, […]
I have been watching with interest over the last two days how the AQAP statement of responsibility has been moving around the al-Faluja forum. First it started in the general […]
Yemen took a number of hits this week – what’s new? – including this report by Human Rights Watch, calling for investigations into past war crimes in Sa ‘dah. I’m […]