Among the less prominent, but no less crucial, aspects of the Riyadh Agreement, signed November 5 by Yemen’s internationally recognized government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), are its commitments to combating corruption. Many in Aden and across the south blame the lack of public services and constant electricity blackouts there on crooked government practices. Raging against such garnered the…

A major breakthrough from the Saudi-Houthi backchannel negotiations came in November with the coalition’s release of more than 100 Houthi prisoners and the partial reopening of Sana’a International Airport. A Houthi delegation, including the movement’s spokesperson Mohammed Abdel Salam and senior officials Abdelmalek al-Ajri and Ahmed al-Shami, held talks with Saudi officials in Muscat, Oman, during the month of November.

History will likely record the Riyadh Agreement as a game-changing moment in the ongoing Yemeni conflict – how exactly the game will change is still far from certain. What the agreement signed on November 5 in the Saudi capital may mean is that for the first time since the war began the disparate forces that make up the anti-Houthi coalition…

Yemen’s internationally backed government and the Southern Transitional Council (STC) signed an agreement November 5 in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, intended to end their recent power struggle in southern Yemen. As part of the accord, known as the Riyadh Agreement, the STC will be given seats in a newly formed Yemeni government composed of political technocrats, as well as a seat at the negotiating table during any future peace talks. In exchange, all STC-aligned military forces will be placed under the…

It is sadly common for belligerents to show wanton disregard for the health and welfare of civilian populations during war. What makes the warring parties in Yemen exceptional in this regard is the sheer scale of devastation they are willing to visit upon their fellow Yemenis in the pursuit of relatively trivial gains. 

Attacks on two Saudi oil facilities in mid-September knocked more than 5 percent of the world’s crude production offline, sending oil prices soaring and further stoking tension in the Gulf. The Houthis claimed to have carried out the operation on state-run oil giant Saudi Aramco, though Saudi Arabia, the United States, and European powers have blamed Iran for the attacks. While concerns of a resulting military conflict that could engulf Yemen had not materialized by month’s end, the attacks are…

Yemen is the cemetery of invaders, or so the ancient proverb goes, and today it is certainly the burial ground of foreign military coalitions. In 2015, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sent their armed forces to lead a regional intervention into Yemen, thinking it would last only weeks.

August saw the Saudi-Emirati military coalition implode as its partners in southern Yemen turned on each other in dramatic fashion. This followed a Houthi strike on a military camp in Aden on August 1 that killed a top southern commander and provided the catalyst for a separatist group's takeover of the city, which is the interim capital of Yemen’s internationally recognized government. 

The reasons the Yemen War began are fundamentally different from why it continues today. All parties to the war – local, regional, and international – have exploited the chaos and collapse of the state to pursue their own vested interests. Among these: powerful actors in the armed Houthi movement have accrued vast sums of wealth through aid diversion and exploiting…

The reasons the Yemen War began are fundamentally different from why it continues today. All parties to the war – local, regional, and international – have exploited the chaos and collapse of the state to pursue their own vested interests. Among these: powerful actors in the armed Houthi movement have accrued vast sums of wealth through aid diversion and exploiting…