During the fighting in Shabwa last year and more recently in Abyan, forces affiliated with the Southern Transitional Council (STC) locked horns with Islah-affiliated government forces. Both sides accused the other of links to Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Such claims have been a feature of the war since 2015, but are usually more rhetorical than real, lacking evidence…

A senior Houthi delegation arrived in Riyadh on September 14, the first such trip since the outset of the conflict. Bilateral Saudi-Houthi talks began in earnest after a failure to extend a UN-backed truce last year and accelerated after a Beijing-brokered détente between Saudi Arabia and Iran in the spring. Talks appeared to stall over the summer, but the visit…

A decade of seismic shifts in Yemen’s political landscape has seen the influence of one of its most powerful tribes wane. Among Yemenis and observers alike, however, developments within the Hashid tribal confederation continue to be closely watched, and merit closer scrutiny. The Hashid’s large presence in Amran, which borders the governorate of Sana’a from the north, has historically been…

The May announcement by Aiderous al-Zubaidi, head of the Southern Transitional Council (STC), that two fellow members from the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) will join the STC, was the final nail in the coffin for the council. The PLC’s eight-member body has been divided since its unnatural creation in April 2022, but this latest disruption to the delicate balance of…

Over the course of three days — April 14, 15, and 16 — 887 prisoners were exchanged among Yemen’s warring parties in a deal facilitated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Houthi forces released 706 detainees in exchange for 181 prisoners held by forces affiliated with the internationally recognized government and the Arab coalition. While most detainees…

Since the early days of the conflict in Yemen, the Houthi movement has been in control of much of the Red Sea coastline. The waterway serves as the main artery for trade between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, estimated at about US$700 billion a year. Some 4 million barrels of oil pass through Bab al-Mandab Strait every day…

Under Moscow’s snow, a Yemeni flame of enlightenment was extinguished. There lies buried Abubakar Al-Saqqaf, Yemen’s most prominent theorist of liberties, human rights, and a civil state, who passed away on December 13, 2022, at the age of 88. Together with his Russian wife Lina, Al-Saqqaf left Yemen in April 2015 on board a Russian evacuation flight, leaving behind a…

The September 2016 rupture of the Central Bank of Yemen (CBY) into rival branches associated with the main warring parties has severely undermined the country’s banking sector. The most fundamental issues affecting Yemeni banks are the differing currency systems that have emerged between areas controlled by the internationally recognized government and Houthi authorities, and the associated competing centers of financial…

When Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by a US drone strike in Afghanistan last July it had only limited impact for the group’s Middle East branches in North Africa, Yemen, and Somalia. This was in part a result of the internal cohesion created by organizational policies introduced since 2011 that gave regional branches significant autonomy. But it also spoke…

As the fragile undeclared truce continues between the internationally recognized government and the Houthi movement in Yemen, another cycle of political and military tension is escalating in southern Yemen. In Wadi Hadramawt, polarization over the future of the Seyoun-based 1st Military Region threatens a new round of fighting between groups within Yemen’s anti-Houthi camp. Tensions over Wadi Hadramawt stem from…