Gregory Johnsen
Near East Studies Scholar, Princeton University
Gregory Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen, is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Johnsen has written for a variety of publications on Yemen including, among others, Foreign Policy, The American Interest, The Independent, The Boston Globe, and The National. He is the co-founder of Waq al-Waq: Islam and Insurgency in Yemen Blog. In 2009, he was a member of the USAID's conflict assessment team for Yemen.
Early this morning, a number of prisoners escaped from a Yemeni central prison in the eastern coastal city of al-Mukalla. The details, as with most stories – particularly breaking ones […]
A couple of days ago Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave a wide-ranging interview to the Associated Press, touching on Yemen. The secretary, who earlier this year admitted the US […]
One of the things that I find most frustrating is reading articles or comments on AQAP by people who have never bothered to actually read what the organization itself puts […]
I spent last night in an Egyptian hospital – don’t ask, not serious – but the time away from my computer and books with only BBC Arabic and al-Arabiya gave […]
Late last night – after hours of rumors – Ali Abdullah Salih left Yemen for Saudi Arabia and more medical attention. My guess is that his wounds are much more […]
The news continues to come fast and furious out of Yemen, much of it just rumors – but still it comes. Even as someone who spends a good deal of […]
The news is coming fast and furious out of Sanaa. Not much is known for certain and it will likely be a while before we have all the details, but […]
It is late where I’m at, and a lot has happened in Yemen today. Yesterday I tried to give a brief overview of events in Yemen, the why and how […]
Sunday May 22 was unification day in Yemen, the anniversary of the date in 1990 in which north and south Yemen united to form a single state. It was also […]
Sunday May 22 was unification day in Yemen, the anniversary of the date in 1990 in which north and south Yemen united to form a single state. It was also […]
Egypt’s revolution took just 18 days to unseat Hosni Mubarak, in Yemen the process has been much, much longer. Earlier this week protesters passed the 3-month mark with no end […]
Yesterday the CTC Sentinel released a special issue on al-Qaeda after the death of Osama bin Laden. You can read the entire thing here. There are a number of incredibly […]
Three months after popular protests began in earnest, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih continues to cling to power. His military has split. Powerful tribal shaykhs have deserted him and protesters […]
It is a rare day when the US budget, or US domestic politics at all for that matter, is featured on Waq al-waq. But today is that day. Over at […]
The other day I participated in a bloggingheads discussion of Yemen with Charles Schmitz of Towson University. You can view our conversation here. And to tide you over until the […]
Salih's demise has long been self-evident. The Obama administration's dithering has only put U.S. security interests more at risk.
Today in an op-ed for the New York Times I argue that the US can no longer put its momentary security interests ahead of its values in Yemen. You can […]
Yesterday, I posted links to article by myself and Ginny Hill on Yemen. Today, I’ll add a number of other interviews by commentators on what is happening in Yemen. Stacey […]
Essentially, Saudi Arabia has to make a choice: is it worse to have chaos and civil war in Yemen or to have yet another regime fall in the Middle East with all potential implications for Bahrain and at home?
As a companion piece to Waq al-waq’s ever expanding ever more popular post on the list of resignations in Yemen (many of these guys are apparently on hold with al-Jazeera […]
At the end of my post on Saturday, I mentioned what I saw at the beginning moves of a potential break between Salih’s immediate family and the rest of his […]
Update: Following Friday’s shooting in Sanaa a number of officials in the ruling GPC party have submitted their resignations. Below is an up-dated list that continues from this earlier post. […]
What events precipitated last Friday's horrific sniper massacre in Yemen, and more importantly where do things go from here?
Events over the weekend made clear that Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Salih's days are numbered.
In Yemen, Hillary Clinton's recent remarks about Iran's influence in Yemen sound as crazy as President Salih's remarks about a secret room in Tel Aviv controlled by the US sounded to Americans.
Waq al-waq has decided, in keeping with protests in Yemen, to keep a running tally of people resigning from the ruling GPC. It very much looks like people are abandoning […]
A little over a week ago I wrote a post on what I saw as the tribal jockeying that was taking place against the backdrop of the protests in Yemen. […]
On Sunday morning President Ali Abdullah Salih gave a speech in front of roughly 30,000 supporters in Sanaa. Foreign journalists were invited to document the event and see the widespread […]
A: Soldiers dressed in civilian clothes, who were ordered into the street. Most people have assumed that many of the thugs beating back protesters every day in Sanaa have been […]
The day started off bad in Sanaa when students managed to beat GPC-paid thugs* to the area outside of Sanaa University. (Michelle Shephard details the day in an excellent report […]