As the anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s killing (May 1, 2012) approached, al-Qaeda commanders in Saudi Arabia planned a terrorist attack that involved downing a passenger plane in the United States. The attack that was foiled was to be launched by a suicide terrorist carrying explosives in his underwear. The attack was a repeat performance – albeit more sophisticated – of a failed attempt in late 2009 to blow up a plane over Detroit. These attempts reflect the Yemenite-Saudi organization’s determination to continue to carry out...
On November 23, 2011 Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived unexpectedly in Saudi Arabia, where he signed an agreement whereby he would transfer authority to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The United States and Saudi Arabia, the nations that brokered the agreement, hope that Saleh’s departure from office would put an end to the “Yemeni revolution,” which began in January 2011, inspired by the events of the Arab spring and in response to Yemen’s already difficult domestic...
The media prominence given to Yemen, this time for the aborted attempt to down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, is not accidental. For some time Yemen has been a center of instability and proof that the clash between states – at least in the Middle East – has been superseded by local or even global distress caused by the weakness, possibly collapse, of national entities. Evidence lies both in the spillover of the fight against the Houthis into Saudi territory and in the transfer of al-Qaeda’s regional center of...
Far from the public eye and the media, the importance of Yemen as an arena of struggle between regional powers is growing. The primary threat to Yemen in recent years is linked to the ongoing fighting in the country’s northwestern region. Fighting erupted again in early August, adding another dimension of instability to a country already confronting a separatist struggle in the south and global jihad activity, and that has lately become a way station for smugglers of arms destined in part for Hamas.
