Monday Papers

Yemen, or at least the newspapers in Yemen, are fairly quiet this morning.

Trey pointed out that the Ministry of the Interior has put together a list of terrorist that combines both al-Qaeda suspects and al-Huthi supporters. The article is here. One note, for some reason the article mistakenly lists al-Shihri’s kunya as Abu Sufayyan instead of the correct Abu Sayyaf. Details, details. (Sometimes the author of this post needs to remember this as well.)

This isn’t the first time the Yemeni government has published such a list, and in my view it is a deliberate confusing of two separate issues, as a way to link its domestic problems to larger regional and western concerns.

It will be illuminating to see the list, if the MOI ever makes it public.

Update/Correction: As the anonymous poster pointed out, the correct kunya is actually Abu Sufayyan not Abu Sayyaf as I mistakenly pointed out above. The confusion arose when al-Shihri was original identified as Abu Sayyaf in the January 19 announcement released with Sada al-Malahim. When I later spoke with the journalist who conducted the interview with al-Wahayshi he told me the correct kunya was Abu Sufayyan, which was later confirmed when the video was released on January 23. As I wrote in the above post, details, details – but this time it is directed at myself. My apologies for the mistake.