PRESS RELEASE – Thursday, October 14, 2021 New York - The Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies briefed the UN Security Council today on the need for immediate international pressure to end the fighting in Marib and to prioritize economic de-escalation to mitigate suffering in Yemen. Non-resident Fellow Maysaa Shuja Al-Deen, who addressed a public session of the Council focused on…

Seven years into the Yemen war, nearly everyone has come to accept what was obvious from the start: foreign military interventions carry within them the seeds of their own failure. The arrogance of the intervening powers humiliates and demoralizes their local partners and clients. The intervening powers are often most comfortable dealing with the most compliant and easily manipulated of…

The findings of this paper broadly reflect governance trends witnessed in various parts of Yemen during the war. In Houthi-controlled areas, the central government in Sana’a has restricted the autonomy of local authorities as part of efforts to consolidate political control and redistribute revenues to the war effort. In Houthi-run parts of Hudaydah governorate, for example, the central government in Sana’a tightly controls virtually all aspects of local governance. 

The decline of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen over the past five years was unexpected. Indicators in the years prior to the onset of the current conflict showed a group primed to expand its influence. The wave of protests against then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011, and his subsequent resignation the following year, had left the country in disarray. A new president was at the helm and struggling with the ascending power of the Houthi movement. Conditions…

Yemen’s Taiz enjoys a strategic location, stretching from central Yemen to the Red Sea Coast, and extending south to the Bab al-Mandab Strait, one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. The governorate has paid a heavy price during the past decade as a result of the turmoil that Yemen has experienced since 2011, when popular protests erupted against the former regime of late President Ali Abdullah Saleh. During the outbreak of the current conflict in 2014-15, Taiz witnessed the…