Following the fall of Al-Hazm, the capital of Al-Jawf governorate, to the armed Houthi movement at the end of February, all eyes have turned to neighboring Marib. The wealthiest governorate in the north, Marib has oil and gas wells, the Safer oil refinery, and a major power station that had supplied most of Yemen with electricity before the war.

In March 2015, then-US President Barack Obama signed off on measures to support the newly formed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Five years on, this ill-defined support remains as murky as ever, despite domestic pressure to review its scope and nature. What is clear, however, is that Washington is not in the driver’s seat when it comes to its policy concerning…

When the United Nations Security Council took a position on the Yemen war five years ago, it quite naturally supported the interests of some of its member states over the armed Houthi movement which had, after all, swept into Sana’a, chased out the internationally recognized government and marched on Aden. In early 2015, Saudi Arabia was confident it could quickly…

My work developing hotel profiles for online bookings brings me in direct contact with hotel owners and managers. The work is good, not boring, and I am friendly with our partners. Still, each time a hotel asks to charge for internet access in its rooms, I feel a rage stirred by the reminder of hotels where I stayed in Casablanca…

High-level policymakers working on Yemen often resemble firefighters: moving from crisis to crisis, rarely affording themselves time to take stock of the bigger picture. Five years on from the launch of Operation Decisive Storm stakeholders remain transfixed by short-term political and military developments in Yemen, such as the recent Houthi advances in Al-Jawf governorate or the stagnant political process. The…

The most appropriate way to chronicle the performance of the internationally recognized Yemeni government since the outbreak of war in the country is by listing its failures. The five years since the Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen on behalf of the government of President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi has seen misstep after misstep. These failings have occurred on multiple fronts…