Yasmeen ياسمين

Honored by the opportunity to contribute to this dossier by @orsamorgtr with a brilliant line up of analysts and scholars, incl @AliBakeer , @betuldoganakkas , Engin Koç, @GiorgioCafiero , Hamdulla Baycar, @mahdijasimg , @Umarkarim89 Here’s a snippet:- “[T]he Houthis and other nonstate armed actors across and around the region, including the Horn of Africa and East Africa, are gaining ground. State actors are coming under increasing pressure, hybrid warfare is expanding, low-cost weapons are readily available, and smuggling networks are becoming increasingly sophisticated and resilient. The concern is that the longer regional states take to establish stable footing and reassert themselves collectively, the greater the risk that they will have missed their opportunity to do so. The spillover from these conflicts threatens to extend beyond the Middle East to African states, which face similar patterns of fragility, making containment even more difficult. This requires regional middle powers, including Türkiye, to adopt a rapid and clear-eyed approach to confronting these multidimensional, systemic challenges. They should exert diplomatic pressure to forge new relationships built on trust and commitment to shared interests and broader regional stability, within an arrangement that leaves no state on the margins. Yemen, long treated as a peripheral issue, is now at the center of the regional security landscape. Any regional arrangement that fails to place Yemen and its people at its core will remain incomplete, with the costs borne first by Yemenis and then by the region as a whole.” orsam.org.tr/wp-content/uplo…

نص قوي وصادق يا سبأ @Saba_Hamzah ، شكرا لك. من ما يشتي يتحاكى عن بلاده ! 🇾🇪

Mohammad el-Shami, a staff member of the UN Human Rights Office in Yemen, died in Houthi prison after more than two years of detention. His family learned of his death more than a month later. He is the second UN staff member to die in Houthi detention, after a WFP colleague, Ahmed baAlawi, in February 2025. Condemnation after the fact is insufficient. The UN and humanitarian organizations have a duty of care toward their Yemeni staff. At least 73 local UN staff remain detained. Those who relocated to Aden, Marib or Taiz now face renewed threats. In some agencies, over half the workforce is on service contracts renewed every five to six months, with little protection planning for staff or their families. As one aid worker put it: "If something happens, we're on our own." As I argued last month, agencies must act pre-emptively through stronger contract protections, prompt legal aid, and safety options for workers and their families. Failing to do so puts thousands of lives at risk. sanaacenter.org/publications…

استمتعت بهذا الحوار مع مراد @AlarefiMurad في برلين. تحدثنا عن كيف يرتفع اهتمام أوروبا والعالم باليمن عندما تطال الأزمة جيوبهم ومصالحهم، وكيف يمكننا، رغم ما يشوب هذا الاهتمام من طابع مؤقت وسطحي وكثير من سوء الفهم، أن نحول هذه اللحظة إلى انخراط والتزام استراتيجي طويل الأمد مع اليمن. تطرقنا أيضاً إلى التصعيد الحالي، ولماذا بات الحوثيون اليوم أفضل رهانات إيران، وما الذي يعنيه أن تكون فاعلاً سياسياً، وكيف أسهم إطار عملية السلام في تشويه مقاربات حل النزاع وجعل فرص الحوار بين الأطراف اليمنية أكثر صعوبة. m.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZnaV…

The Houthis are using medieval tactics in Taiz, besieging close to a million people and starving them of food and water to force a submission. The global hype they gained after 2023 for supposedly standing by Gaza will dissipate when the world sees they are copying Israeli siege tactics on their fellow Yemenis. So far, the war in Yemen has largely evaded the fate of senselessly bloody civil wars we've seen in Syria, Sudan and Congo. This second siege of Taiz may be a turning point in the war, making the rules of engagement that have more or less governed it for 12 years untenable. It's almost ironic that the Houthis, who emerged from an insurgency, don't know that extreme cruelty breeds armed resistance and a violent insurgency, which can take down states, let alone an armed group still scrambling to consolidate.

I enjoyed this conversation with @mardilevante, @almuslimi and @ToninelliLuigi on @ISPI’s MED Insights podcast, where we discussed how the Houthis became so powerful and what their expanding reach means for the region. Listen here: ispionline.it/en/publication…

It’s difficult to deter a group that has little to lose when everyone around it has a lot to lose. This leaves regional and global powers alike at a loss for options. The Houthis have invested heavily in shifting the balance of power in their favour, so there’s no quick way to reverse this. Quick fixes or disengagement always backfire. What’s needed is a collaborative, multilateral strategy that resists reducing the conflict to a hard security problem. The conflict is underpinned by deep-rooted economic, governance and social problems, as well as Yemen’s marginalisation in the region. No solution can be sustained unless it addresses these in the medium to long term. In my interview with @CIVICUSalliance, I also discuss: - Why open war has returned after a four-year stalemate - Where the government’s announced offensive on Sana’a stands - What’s at stake for regional powers - How the fighting is affecting civilians and what’s preventing aid from reaching them - How civil society is responding and the risks it faces Full interview: lens.civicus.org/interview/1…

Good podcast with @maysaashujaa & @AllisonMinor_ . I appreciate that @hugogoodridge's Yemen episodes never lose sight of the humanitarian crisis and the toll geopolitical calculations take on Yemenis living through this grinding reality.

Our quarterly #Yemen review is out, with pieces by @musaedaklan , @KhaledMonassar , @alawlaki1981 , @NawafEObaid , @LaraUhlenhaut , Ned Walley, @janad2009 , @galrashidy , @maysaashujaa , @LauraCretney1 , Maher Abu Al-Majd, @rim_mugahed

My comments to the @FT I don't think that the Houthis need to be ordered by the Iranians at this point. Now we are at a stage when we can say Sana'a and Tehran are the same battle arena. Nothing will bring the Houthis to the negotiating table [with a genuine intention to negotiate a peace settlement] as long as they have the upper hand.