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Latest Articles about Middle East
RUSSIAN PUNDITS DIVIDED ON HOW TO REACT TO THE DEATH THROُES OF POST-SOVIET WORLD
The violent unrest spreading across eastern Uzbekistan may symbolize the second, and final, stage of the Soviet Union's collapse. Russian strategists appear divided as to what Moscow's response should be to the ongoing geopolitical transformations. While the liberal minority suggests Russia would be well advised... MORE
Editor’s Note on Yemeni Special Issue
Dear Reader: Jamestown presents this special issue on Yemen as a part of our ongoing endeavor to focus on pivotal states involved in the War on Terror. An important US ally since 9/11, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih has performed a difficult balancing act in... MORE
Landscape of Shifting Alliances
There can be little doubt that Yemen plays a key role in the US-led war on al-Qaeda’s terrorist network, but it is a role that the Arab country would have preferred not to take on. Indeed, had it not been for al-Qaeda’s attack on the... MORE
The Soviet Roots of Islamic Militancy in Yemen
"Possibilities for the Third World War would have greatly increased if we had not taken South Yemen into our hands." These words of former Soviet Defense Minister Marshall Ustinov were repeated constantly throughout the 1970s by Soviet military consultants in Aden, underscoring the importance of... MORE
U.S.-Yemen Relations and the War on Terror: A Portrait of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih
Colonel Ali Abdullah Salih became president of North Yemen in 1978 and then of the Republic of Yemen after unification of the North with the former Marxist South in 1990. From 1978 through the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Salih sought to gain leverage for his... MORE
Shifting Sands: Al-Qaeda and Tribal Gun-Running Along the Yemeni Frontier
For centuries, tribal politics in Yemen have been driven by one simple concept: loyalty is sold to the highest bidder. While both Saudi Arabia and the Yemeni government have used this principle to their advantage, it is al-Qaeda that has been the high bidder in... MORE
Turkey’s Al-Qaeda Blowback
In the 1980's the CIA commenced a vast covert operation to arm the anti-Soviet Mujahideen factions in Afghanistan as a means of turning the Soviet Fortieth Expeditionary Army's invasion of this Central Asian country into a Vietnam-style quagmire. In forging this dangerous new transnational holy... MORE
The Iranian Intelligence Services and the War On Terror
Afghanistan and Pakistan The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 did not come as a surprise to the Iranian intelligence community, primarily because they had been engaged in their own covert war against the Taliban and its international Islamist allies for many years. Indeed, under... MORE
Cooperation and Conflict: Analyzing the U.S.-Yemen Relationship
Although President Salih condemned American military action against insurgents in Fallujah, saying that terror must be fought with persuasion and dialogue rather than anti-personnel bombs (al-Motamar 2004), he welcomed the new U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), based in Djibouti. Yemen has been... MORE
Soft Power and the Psychology of Suicide Bombing
The soldiers believed they came that spring to free a part of the Middle East from the tyranny of terrorists and evil men. What amazed them was the warm welcome from Shi’ite Muslims in the south and the Capital. The victors confidently sent in their... MORE