war

A Houthi delegation flew to Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, on September 14 for the latest round of negotiations to end nine years of war in Yemen. A year after the United Nations officially brokered a truce in April 2022, talks have slowly shifted from backchannels to direct public meetings. The high visibility of their first-ever confirmed visit to Saudi Arabia…

A strange curse seems to be hanging over Sah district. Cultivable plots, once lush with crops, pastures, limes, watermelons, and onions, have been abandoned. Blackened at the base, twisted and staggering, the trail of date palms stands out in the desolate landscape. On his doorstep sits 36-year-old Mohammed Ali Salem Sourour, listening to the song of the birds, which are…

The arrival of a Houthi delegation in Riyadh on September 14 represents a breakthrough after nine bitter years of war. The bilateral negotiations with Saudi Prince Khaled Bin Salman have been widely celebrated and encouraged, though there are myriad grounds for skepticism. But the moment is important as well as symbolic - it marks the dampening of the dangerous and…

Since the summer of 2019, protests have become a fixture across Hadramawt in reaction to the poor provision of electricity. Although the governorate is far from the frontlines and home to most of the country’s oil reserves, it has not escaped destabilizing aspects of the conflict, including the erosion of the rule of law and the emergence of war profiteering.…

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…