Category Archives: Yemen

Yemen: Thousands protest Houthis’ control of Sanaa

Al Jazeera: Thousands of Yemenis have taken to the streets of Sanaa to protest against the Houthi group’s control of the capital, two days after President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s resignation left the country in political limbo.

The demonstration on Saturday came as regions in the formerly independent south stepped up their defiance after the Shia Houthi fighters, who hail from Yemen’s northern highlands, tightened their grip on Sanaa.

Witnesses said up to 10,000 people marched from Sanaa University towards Hadi’s home and back, repeating chants denouncing both the Houthi group and predominantly Sunni al-Qaeda.

“Down, down with the Houthis’ rule,” chanted protesters who rallied following a call by the Rejection Movement – a group recently formed in provincial areas to challenge the Houthi group.

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Yemen chaos threatens U.S. counterterror efforts, including drone program

The Washington Post reports: The White House’s strategy for fighting al-Qaeda in Yemen — repeatedly presented as a model by President Obama — was left in tatters Thursday by the resignation of the man who personally approved U.S. drone strikes in the country and the collapse of its central government.

U.S. officials struggled to sort out a melange of reports about who, if anyone, is in charge in Yemen. The prospect of continued chaos cast doubt on the viability of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policy for Yemen and whether it can still count on local help against al-Qaeda.

“A dangerous situation just went from bad to worse with grave implications for our counterterrorism efforts,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee. “Our relationship with the Yemen government has been vital in confronting [al-Qaeda] and keeping the pressure on its leadership, and every effort must be made to continue that partnership.”

As recently as September, Obama had cited his Yemen strategy as a template for confronting jihadist threats in other places, including Iraq and Syria. Instead of sending large numbers of troops to fight al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the country directly, the Pentagon has limited its presence to a small number of trainers to teach and equip Yemen’s security forces. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen government resigns

PRI reports: Omeisy says the presence of rebel soldiers, and the occasional shelling, have made more of an impact on Western media than on Sana’a residents. “Everybody’s armed in Yemen,” he says. “You go down the street even — before the conflict — and everybody’s basically armed. Shooting in the air is actually quite common.”

And there’s been plenty of military movement in the capital over the past year. “When things like this happen — when they say, like, ‘Now the Houthis are moving into Sana’a,’ the media tends to exaggerate. For us who live here in Yemen, this is not actually big news,’ Omeisy says.

Yemen’s government, under President Hadi, has also made little headway in improving living conditions. “What we’ve seen is a deterioration of the situation overall — the electricity, the unavailability of gasoline, cooking gas, oil and the security [problem with al-Qaeda]. What Yemenis need to see is change.” [Continue reading…]

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Does anyone control Yemen?

The New York Times: Houthi rebel militiamen seized control of the palace of Yemen’s president and clashed with guards outside his residence on Tuesday in an escalation of the violent crisis that has gripped the capital for days, raising fears of a coup in one of the Arab world’s most impoverished and insecure states.

The president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, viewed by the United States as a crucial counterterrorism ally, was believed to be in the capital, but his exact whereabouts was unknown. He made no public statements as the fighting escalated, though Houthi leaders insisted that he was safe and in his home.

The Soufan Group: It has taken decades of deteriorating politics and security for Yemen to reach its current level of crisis, though now the costs might come not just in the form of the suffering of the Yemeni people but also in regional instability and the proliferation of international terrorism. While the causes of Yemen’s crisis are intensely local—having to do with longstanding issues of corruption, tribal and North-South differences, and a constitution in need of amending — it is being amplified both by meddling regional actors and a menacing terrorist group with international reach.

The move by Houthi rebels to seize control of the presidential palace in Sana’a is a warning to President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi to meet the conditions of Abdul Malik al-Houthi, head of the Houthi movement Ansar Allah. In his January 20 televised speech regarding the fighting in Sana’a, al-Houthi accused Hadi of “covering for corruption.” He claimed that the Yemeni president “refused to order the army to fight against al-Qaeda.” Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is based in Yemen and is the terror network’s most capable and operationally active affiliate, despite a relatively robust U.S. counterterrorism drone program that seeks to keep the group off balance. Going further, al-Houthi accused the Hadi administration of providing weapons to AQAP.

The Houthis are demanding changes to the current constitutional amendments under consideration. They oppose dividing the country into six administrative regions, and demand grouping the country into two regions—north and south—that allow them to solidify the gains they have made since the 2011 ouster of long-time Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Salah. In his speech, al-Houthi demanded action against systemic corruption, pressure against AQAP in the Ma’rib Governorate, and quicker action to amend the constitution and preserve the goals of the Peace and National Partnership Agreement signed in September 2014 that expands Houthi political power.

New Atlanticist: During Yemen’s gradual slump into disorder, US policy has continued to focus on military action — attacking AQAP personnel with missiles fired from drone aircraft, and supporting Yemeni government counterterrorism forces, [Danya] Greenfield said in an interview. But it has not given enough attention or resources to address the broader failings of the transition government. Yemen has failed to implement steps agreed on in the National Dialogue, allowing increasingly frustrated Yemenis to be drawn in by AQAP militants, the Shiite Houthi rebels, and southern secessionists, according to Greenfield, the deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

“We’re not accurately diagnosing the problem and therefore not prescribing the right solution or the right kind of assistance strategy that would really respond to the needs on the ground,” Greenfield said. Her comments updated an Atlantic Council report she co-authored in October with former US Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine. “Any US strategy to counter terrorists needs to address the pervasive lack of economic opportunity, structural unemployment, cronyism, and the inequitable distribution of state resources,” Greenfield and Bodine wrote.

Recently, “the US approach underestimated the threat of the Houthi movement, which poses a much broader security dilemma for Yemeni citizens and the Yemeni government,” Greenfield said in the interview January 20.

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For Syrian refugees in Yemen the future has become fearfully uncertain

Middle East Eye reports: When Abu Saleh [a pseudonym] sits down to talk about why Syria’s unremitting civil war forced him to seek refuge in Yemen, he stops every few minutes to scroll through photos on his phone.

“See here,” he said, pointing to a snapshot of six young men, their grins and embrace of one another discernible even through the phone’s cracked screen. “All dead.” More photos follow. More loved ones lost to Syria’s spiraling violence.

Abu Saleh then returns to explain why Jordan is too expensive, in Turkey he doesn’t speak the language, the welcome for refugees in Egypt has grown painfully thin, uncertainty has long loomed in Iraq and when he briefly found himself in Lebanon, Hezbollah tried to recruit him.

Syria’s neighbouring countries – whose infrastructure and social fabric have been buckling under the strain of hosting the majority of the more than three million refugees that have fled Syria’s bloody civil war – did not seem like options for him. But neither did remaining in Syria.

The 25-year-old former soldier feared persecution after he fled Bashar al-Assad’s army when he received orders to fire at protests in early 2011 challenging the government’s rule. This was all before Syria came to be called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today.

Abu Saleh fled to Yemen two years ago to escape the fate of his friends in the photos.

Yemen’s low cost of living, ease of obtaining entry and relative stability at the time of his arrival offered Abu Saleh – like many of the Syrians who have found their way to the southern Gulf nation – a potentially ephemeral retreat from the bombs of his home country. [Continue reading…]

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Yemen truce after Shiite rebels battle troops, seize media

The Associated Press reports: A cease-fire halted intense clashes near the presidential palace in Yemen’s capital Sanaa on Monday after Shiite rebels seized control of state-run media in a move that one official called “a step toward a coup.”

The fighting, centered on the palace and a military area south of it, marked the biggest challenge yet to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi by the rebels, known as Houthis, who swept down from their northern strongholds last year and captured the capital in September.

The violence has plunged the Arab world’s poorest country further into chaos and could complicate U.S. efforts to battle al-Qaida’s Yemeni affiliate, which claimed responsibility for the attack on a Paris satirical magazine this month and which Washington has long viewed as the global network’s most dangerous branch.

The Houthis are seen by their critics as a proxy of Shiite Iran — charges they deny — and are believed to be allied with former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, ousted in a 2012 deal after Arab Spring protests. They have vowed to eradicate al-Qaida, but are also hostile to the U.S. Their slogan is “Death to Israel. Death to America.” [Continue reading…]

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Al Qaeda claims French attack, derides Paris rally

Reuters reports: Al Qaeda in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, saying it was ordered by the Islamist militant group’s leadership for insulting the Prophet Mohammad, according to a video posted on YouTube.

Gunmen killed a total of 17 people in three days of violence that began when they opened fire at Charlie Hebdo last week in revenge for publication of satirical images of the Prophet.

This was the first time that a group officially claimed responsibility for the attack, led by two brothers who had visited the poor Arabian peninsula country in 2011.

“As for the blessed Battle of Paris, we … claim responsibility for this operation as vengeance for the Messenger of God,” said Nasser bin Ali al-Ansi, a leader of the Yemeni branch of al Qaeda (AQAP) in the recording.

Ansi, an AQAP ideologue, said the “one who chose the target, laid the plan and financed the operation is the leadership of the organisation”, without naming an individual.

He added without elaborating that the strike was carried out in “implementation” of the order of overall al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who has called for strikes by Muslims in the West using any means they can find.

Ansi also gave credit for the operation to slain AQAP propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki, a preacher cited by one of the gunmen in remarks to French media as a financer of the attack.

It was not clear how Awlaki, killed by a U.S. drone in 2011, had a direct link to the Paris assault, but he inspired several militants in the United States and Britain to acts of violence. [Continue reading…]

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Both brothers behind Paris attack said to have had weapons training in Yemen

Reuters reports: Both brothers who carried out the attack against satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo traveled to Yemen via Oman in 2011 and had weapons training in the deserts of Marib, where al Qaeda has a presence, two senior Yemeni sources said on Sunday.

This is the first confirmation by Yemeni officials that both Cherif and Said Kouachi, who carried out one of the bloodiest Islamist attacks on the West in years, had visited Yemen where al Qaeda’s deadliest franchise, AQAP, is based. U.S., European and Yemeni sources had previously confirmed a visit by Said Kouachi.

The Paris attack puts a fresh spotlight on the AQAP branch which has recently focused on fighting enemies at home such as government forces and Shi’ite rebels but still aims to carry out attacks abroad.

A concerted government campaign last year and repeated U.S. drone strikes on AQAP figures had also created a belief that it lacked the capability to launch any major attacks abroad. Al Qaeda-linked militants have managed however, to target Westerners, including a Frenchman, in Yemen in the past year.

“These two brothers arrived in Oman on July 25, 2011, and from Oman they were smuggled into Yemen where they stayed for two weeks,” a senior Yemeni security official, who declined to be named, said.

“They met (al Qaeda preacher) Anwar al-Awlaki and then they were trained for three days in the deserts of Marib on how to fire a gun. They returned to Oman and they left Oman on Aug. 15, 2011 to go back to France.”

A senior Yemeni intelligence source confirmed the brothers had entered Yemen via Oman in 2011, citing the ease with which they entered while the security forces were focused on the Arab Spring protests that were convulsing the country at the time.

The source also confirmed the brothers had met Awlaki “and trained in Wadi Abida” – which is between Marib and Shabwa provinces where Awlaki was known to move freely. [Continue reading…]

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The forgotten war that spawned the Paris attacks

Adam Baron writes: The massacre at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo was neither the only nor the deadliest terror attack to occur on Wednesday. Hours before the Koauchi brothers made their way to the offices of the French satirical magazine, thousands of miles away, in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, a car bomb struck a crowd of men lined up to enroll at the city’s police academy. Roughly four-dozen were killed as the bomb went off, strewing blood and body parts across the street.

It’s a coincidence that has grown all the more notable — and tragic — in light of the emerging ties between the Charlie Hebdo attackers and al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Yemen-based terror group that officials have accused of carrying out Wednesday’s car bomb. According to the AFP, Said Koauchi, the older of the pair, traveled to Yemen multiple times between 2009 and 2011, studying at Sanaa’s Iman University, a controversial institution headed by firebrand cleric Abdulmajid al-Zindani, prior to training with AQAP in camps in the south and southeast of the country.

Notably, Inspire, an English-language, AQAP-affiliate magazine, explicitly threatened to kill Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier in its March 2013 edition, and at writing time, AQAP has reportedly taken credit for the attack on behalf of the group, though the ultimate extent of the Koauchi brothers’ ties to Yemen and AQAP is still unclear. Either way, the attack has refocused attention to the impoverished, conflict-stricken country.

Hailed as a textbook example of a successful counterterrorism strategy by U.S. officials as late as fall of last year, Yemen has instead been riven with unrest lately. An internationally backed power transition agreement has fallen apart, and the country’s economy — to say nothing of the central government’s control over the bulk of the country — has appeared to collapse as well. And no one in the circles of power in the West seems to have noticed.

Indeed, last week’s violence in Paris seems to underline how little progress has been made against AQAP. Despite the efforts of the U.S. and Yemeni governments, it still appears to possess the ability to unleash horrors against Western targets.

Yemen had already developed a reputation as a hotspot for extremism by the time Koauchi allegedly first arrived in 2009. Many western-born Muslim hardliners flocked to Salafi institutes in the country, most famously, perhaps, the Dar al-Hadith institute in the far northern town of Dammaj. While the bulk of these foreigners simply came to study, a number joined up with extremists on the ground. One of the most notorious among them was “Underwear Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student trained by AQAP who infamously attempted to blow up a passenger airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

But while such rare plots against foreign targets have garnered AQAP the most attention, the bulk of activity — and the bulk of their attacks — has occurred on Yemeni soil. It is this violence the West ignores at its peril. [Continue reading…]

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In the new era of terrorism, Anwar al-Awlaki’s voice can still be heard

The New York Times reports: For more than five years now, as Western terrorism investigators have searched for critical influences behind the latest jihadist plot, one name has surfaced again and again.

In the failed attack on an airliner over Detroit in 2009, the stabbing of a British member of Parliament in London in 2010, the lethal bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013 and now the machine-gunning of cartoonists and police officers in Paris, Anwar al-Awlaki has proved to be a sinister and durable inspiration.

Two of those four attacks took place after Mr. Awlaki, the silver-tongued, American-born imam who joined Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, was killed by a C.I.A. drone strike in September 2011.

In the age of YouTube, Mr. Awlaki’s death — or martyrdom, in the view of his followers — has hardly reduced his impact. The Internet magazine Inspire, which he oversaw along with another American, Samir Khan, has continued to spread not just militant rhetoric but also practical instructions on shooting and bomb-making.

Times reporters and editors are providing live updates from the march in Paris that comes in the wake of the attacks on a satirical newspaper and a kosher grocery last week.

In effect, Mr. Awlaki has become a leading brand name in the world of armed jihad. [Continue reading…]

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The road that led from tough Paris estate to radical Yemen training

Jason Burke reports: The path is well-trodden: from a tough housing estate in a western city, through a scruffy, colourful, traffic-choked capital 3,500 miles away, on to one of the country’s religious schools, and eventually into a violent extremist organisation.

The journey has been made by thousands of young western Muslim men over the two decades or more that contemporary Islamic militancy has posed a deadly international threat. Many are converts, including some of the most wanted militants today. Some are followers, rather than leaders. Some are already committed to an extremist agenda, even if they have yet to act. Many return with a dogmatic, sometimes hate-filled, world view, but remain non-violent. Others return with the skills and contacts necessary to implement their, or their new leaders’, ambitions to kill and maim.

This weekend at least one new name, probably two, have been added to the list: Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, the brothers who killed 12 people in the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo last week. Details of the Kouachis’ travels are still unclear but it appears both spent time in Yemen over the past five years.

Speaking to French TV channel BFM on Friday afternoon, as police commandoes prepared for the final assault, Chérif, 32, said he had travelled to Yemen in 2011. His expenses were paid by the American-Yemeni extremist preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, who was influential within al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap) and one of the most popular radical propagandists in the world. “It was a while ago, before al-Awlaki was killed,” he told BFM. Al-Awlaki died in a suspected US drone strike in September 2011.

Saïd, 34, had also travelled to Yemen, attending the Iman University, which is headed by fundamentalist preacher Abdel Majeed al-Zindani, whose name figures on a US terror blacklist, according to a former Yemeni classmate interviewed by AFP. The classmate said he had lost track of Saïd between 2010 and 2013, when local rebel Houthi militiamen, who are from the Shia minority strand of Islam, overran a religious school in the small town of Dammaj, to the north of the capital Sa’ana, run by conservatives from the Sunni majority. The school, well- known in jihadi circles and to security agencies, was a destination for hundreds of foreigners, former students have said. [Continue reading…]

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Anonymous ‘AQAP source’ leaks information about group’s role in Charlie Hebdo?

Someone alleged to be a member of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula says the group directed the Paris attack this week “as revenge for the honor” of the Prophet Muhammad, according to the Associated Press. “The member provided the statement on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized by the group to give his name.”

Another statement also provided by an anonymous “AQAP source” to The Intercept said: “Do not look for links or affiliation with Jihadi fronts. It is enough they are Muslims. They are Mujahideen. This is the Jihad of the Ummah.”

This “source” appears to be someone who tweets as @AL_hezbr1. Since neither the AP nor The Intercept offer any indication as to how or if they know that their source actually belongs to AQAP, it sounds like more accurate reporting would require referring to an anonymous source who claims to be a member of AQAP. But of course, a report that was sourced to some guy on Twitter probably wouldn’t get published.

A video released today by AQAP’s official media contains a statement by Harith al-Nazari its top sharia official who apparently praises the Paris attack without claiming responsibility.


Before he was killed today, Cherif Kouachi told BMFTV, a CNN affiliate in France, “I was sent, me, Cherif Kouachi, by al Qaeda in Yemen. I went there and Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki financed my trip.”

The Long War Journal reports:

Separately, BMFTV was also in contact today with Amedy Coulibaly, who was not involved in the assault on Charlie Hebdo, but is suspected of killing a Paris police officer and holding hostages at a kosher market.

Coulibaly apparently did not mention any ties to AQAP, but did say he was a member of the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that claims to rule over parts of Iraq and Syria as a “caliphate.” Coulibaly also claimed that he had coordinated his actions with the Kouachi brothers.

It is not clear at this point if Coulibaly had any ties to the Islamic State, or was simply claiming an affiliation.

That the gunmen had ties to AQAP and ISIS seems unlikely.

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Paris attack suspect met prominent al Qaeda preacher in Yemen says intelligence source

Reuters reports: One of two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly shooting at a French satirical weekly met leading al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki during a stay in Yemen in 2011, a senior Yemeni intelligence source told Reuters on Friday.

U.S. born and web-savvy, Awlaki was seen as an influential international recruiter to the al Qaeda movement and a prominent figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the group’s most active affiliate. He was killed in September 2011 in a drone strike widely attributed to the CIA.

U.S. and European sources close to the investigation said on Thursday that one of the suspects in the French attack, Said Kouachi, was in Yemen for several months training with AQAP. [Continue reading…]

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Confusion in U.S. on status of magazine attack suspects, but the French are not afraid

NBC News reports: After a long day of rapidly changing information, US counterterrorism officials said Wednesday night that they cannot be certain what the status is of the three suspects in the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine. Information from French sources has been contradictory, they said.

Earlier Wednesday, two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials told NBC News that one of the suspects in the attack had been killed and that two others were in custody. However, the officials later said the information that was the basis of that account could not be confirmed.

Reuters reports: An 18-year old man sought by police over Wednesday’s shooting attack at satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo handed himself voluntarily to police in northeastern France, an official at the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Police are hunting three French nationals, including brothers Said Kouachi, born in 1980; Cherif Kouachi, born in 1982; and Hamyd Mourad born in 1996, after suspected Islamist gunmen killed 12 people.

The official, who declined to identify the man, said he had turned himself in at a police station in Charleville-Mézières, in northeastern France at around 2300 GMT.

McClatchy reports: Security experts who viewed videos of the attack said the attackers clearly were professionals, likely with combat experience.

“They appear very calm during the attack. They’ve clearly handled weapons before. They know exactly what they’re doing, from the moment they arrive until they flee,” said terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp, the research director of the Centre for Asymmetric Threat Studies at the Swedish National Defense College.

Still, the attackers apparently were unfamiliar with their target, reportedly arriving first at the building where the newspaper’s archives are stored. Once they realized their error, the Agence France Press news agency reported, they moved a few doors down to the weekly’s headquarters.

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Paris attack suspect dead, two in custody — suspects were on police radar for years

NBC News reports: One of the suspects in the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine has been killed and the two others are in custody, two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials told NBC News on Wednesday.

Mashable: French police officials have identified three men as suspects in the deadly terror attack at the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper.

One of the men, 35-year-old Cheriff Kouachi, was convicted on terrorism charges in 2008.

Two of the suspects, brothers Cheriff and Said Kouachi, 32, are French nationals who were born to Algerian parents in Paris. The nationality of a third man, Hamid Mourad, 18, is unknown; police believe he is a high school student.

Their names circulated on Facebook and Twitter for an hour before French authorities confirmed that the Kouachi brothers had been identified.

One of the officials who spoke to the Associated Press said they were linked to a Yemeni terrorist network.

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Yemen bomb blast kills dozens near Sanaa police academy

BBC News reports: At least 37 people have been killed and 66 others injured by a bomb blast outside a police academy in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, police say.

Two men were seen getting out of a minibus and walking away shortly before it exploded beside dozens of people queuing to enrol at the academy.

Afterwards, body parts and debris from the bus were strewn across the street.

There has so far been no claim of responsibility, but an offshoot of al-Qaeda has carried out similar attacks.

Yemen has experienced a wave of violence in recent months, with militants from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) battling Shia Houthi rebels who have taken control of the capital.

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Conflicts that were under-reported in 2014: Libya, Yemen, Assam, The Sudans, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Kenya

Ishaan Tharoor writes: 2014 has been a brutal year. The death toll of Syria’s ongoing civil war likely eclipsed 200,000, while the hideous rise of the Islamic State spurred a U.S.-led bombing campaign. A separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine led to thousands of deaths and clouded relations between the West and Moscow, which is believed to be aiding the rebels. And an Israeli offensive against Hamas militants saw whole stretches of the Gaza Strip reduced to rubble.

Sadly, there was plenty of other mayhem and violence that didn’t make newspaper frontpages as often. Here are seven awful conflicts that merited more attention. [Continue reading…]

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Jihadi groups killed more than 5,000 people in November

The Guardian reports: Jihadi groups killed more than 5,000 people last month, with Iraq topping the league table of deaths, followed by Nigeria, Afghanistan and Syria.

In 664 incidents recorded in November by the BBC World Service and researched jointly with King’s College London, the overall death toll was 5,042, or an average of 168 deaths per day and nearly twice the number of people who were killed in the 11 September 2001 attacks on America.

After Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Syria, Yemen was fifth in the deadly league table, tying with Somalia, with 37 incidents each.

The data, shared with the Guardian, provides a unique insight into the human cost, intensity, scale and geographical distribution of a phenomenon that has captured headlines and driven political and security agendas across the world. [Continue reading…]

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