Yemen

SANAA, Yemen — For al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, the volunteer seemed ideal. He was willing to die in a suicide operation , and he had travel papers that would allow him to board a U.S.-bound flight. It was a perfect dangle, in the parlance of spycraft, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula took the bait. The group's bombmaker fitted the man with a new version of a nonmetallic "underwear bomb. " What he didn't know was that the would-be martyr was an agent run by Saudi Arabia.

SANAA, Yemen — Three Red Cross workers and two Egyptian technicians who were abducted by armed men in Yemen's southern province of Abyan have all been released, Yemeni security officials said Thursday. The three staffers from the International Committee of the Red Cross had been held since Monday morning, when armed men stopped their ICRC-marked vehicle in the vicinity of Jaar, near the southern port city of Aden, the ICRC said in Geneva. The three — two international staff and a...

Christopher Boucek, 38, an authority on the Islamic world who had done research on Saudi Arabia and Yemen and was an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, died Nov. 2 at Reston Hospital Center. His wife, Marie Boucek, said he had a heart attack. He lived in Reston. Dr. Boucek first came to Washington in 1994 as an intern at the State Department. In the late 1990s, he worked with several D.C. organizations dealing with U.S.-Arab relations. He moved to Cairo in 2000 to edit an English-language newspaper and then returned...

GENEVA — Three Red Cross workers who were kidnapped by armed men in the southern Yemeni province of Abyan have been safely released, the organization said Thursday. The three staff members for the International Committee of the Red Cross had been held since Monday morning when the armed men stopped their ICRC-marked vehicle in the vicinity of Jaar, near the southern port city of Aden, the ICRC said in a statement. The two international staff and a locally hired employee were on their way back from a field trip.

Sudarsan Raghavan's Jan. 9 front-page artice, " In Yemen, children pay the price of revolt ," exposed how Yemen's political upheaval and humanitarian crisis are harming children. It points out that rising poverty and displacement may result in more families marrying off young girls to ease financial pressures. More than half of girls in Yemen marry before age 18, and about 14 percent before age 15. In some rural areas, families marry off girls as young as 8. Last month Human Rights Watch published a report about child marriage based...

SANAA, Yemen — Yemen's defense minister escaped a suicide bomb attack on his convoy Tuesday in the volatile southern city of Aden, an assault that government officials blamed on al-Qaeda. It was the second attempt to kill Defense Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed in less than a month, underscoring the tense environment in Yemen's south, where al-Qaeda-linked militants have taken control of large swaths of territory this year. A suicide bomber driving a car detonated explosives alongside the minister's convoy on a coastal...

SANAA, Yemen — Yemen's leader came under new pressure Wednesday as influential clerics, tribal leaders and some members of Yemen's opposition presented a plan for a peaceful transition of power. President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier pledged that he would not seek reelection in 2013. But some protesters who have taken to the streets here in recent weeks have demanded that he step down immediately, and the opposition's proposal Wednesday marked an attempt to find a middle ground. By late Wednesday, there had...

THE SITUATION in Yemen is as complex as it is dangerous. With the president in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment , a power vacuum looms, with a bewildering array of forces competing to fill it: the remains of his regime, opposition political parties, youthful pro-democracy protesters, renegade generals, tribal leaders and Islamic extremists. If the Obama administration and European and Arab allies are fumbling for a strategy, they have good reason to be. But there is at least a starting point on which all should be able to agree: Ali...

SANAA, Yemen — President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Saturday agreed to step down in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution for himself and his family, the strongest indication yet that the embattled leader was willing to give up his 32-year grip on power if the opposition accepted his terms of exit. Under a proposal by neighboring Arab states, Saleh would resign from office 30 days after a formal agreement has been signed. If Saleh, a vital U.S. counterterrorism ally, keeps his pledge, it would mark a...

SANAA, Yemen — Hamid al-Ahmar is not a member of Yemen's ruling party or its military. He holds no formal position in its opposition movement. Nor can he claim the authority of a religious leader. Yet Ahmar is anything but a mere observer in the seven-month-old populist uprising to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He is a billionaire, a scion of the country's most powerful tribal family , and he is using his money and power to assert a role in a new Yemen. He has bankrolled protest...

HELSINKI — Finland says two Finnish and one Austrian hostage who were kidnapped in Yemen in December have been released. Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja says the Finnish couple, Leila and Atte Kaleva, and Austrian Dominik Neubauer have not been harmed and had flown to Austria where they were being examined at a hospital. Tuomioja said Thursday that Finland did not pay a ransom for the hostages' release. He thanked officials in Austria, Oman and Yemen for close cooperation during...

SANAA, Yemen — The president of Yemen on Thursday warned that the al-Qaida branch in the country was expanding and using assassinations and abductions of foreigners as a way to challenge the central authority. President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi issued his warning during a closed session of the National Dialogue, which brings political, religious and other leaders together to decide on the country's political system before writing a constitution. The official SABA news agency said Hadi held an...

EAST ASIA Japan-Taiwan deal prompts ire in China China expressed deep concern Wednesday after Japan and Taiwan signed a fishing agreement for the seas around a disputed group of East China Sea islands that have been at the center of an increasingly hostile standoff between Beijing and Tokyo. "We hope that Japan earnestly abides by its promises on the Taiwan issue and acts cautiously and appropriately," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said. Japan...

The Obama administration is still struggling with how to make good on the president's promise to ensure that its counterterrorism programs, including drone strikes, are "even more transparent to the American people and to the world. " After President Obama's pledge in his State of the Union address in mid-February, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told a Senate hearing in early March that the president would publicly address the issue "in a relatively short period of time.

Danya Greenfield is deputy director of the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East . David J. Kramer is president of Freedom House . Most news out of the Middle East these days is dispiriting: the devastating civil war in Syria , the autocratic nature of Muslim Brotherhood rule in Egypt , continued militia activity in Libya, a coalition collapse in Tunisia. Less discussed, and surprisingly positive, is the political situation in Yemen. The United States has played a...

In the northwest enclaves of this capital, a renegade general's forces control the streets. In the southern reaches, Yemen's former president exerts influence from his mansion. And in a neighborhood nestled in the middle, a powerful tribal family wields authority on the ground and in political circles. A year after President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in a deal brokered by the United States and Yemen's Arab neighbors, the country's three most influential families continue to cast...

The Obama administration has approved Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh's request to enter the United States for medical treatment, clearing the way for a transfer of power in the strife-filled country. Saleh flew out of Yemen's capital, Sanaa, late Sunday and headed for a first stop in Oman, a Yemen spokesman said. It was not clear when he would arrive in the United States or how long he would stay here. Before leaving, Saleh asked his countrymen for forgiveness in a television address and said he planned to return...

SANAA, YEMEN — Adding to the pressure on Yemen's embattled president, several members of his ruling Congress Party resigned Saturday as tens of thousands of people again took to the streets to demand his ouster and Britain warned its citizens against traveling to the impoverished Arab country. President Ali Abdullah Saleh, a key U.S. ally against an active al-Qaeda offshoot in Yemen, refused to budge, rejecting a proposal from a coalition of opposition groups to end the political standoff by agreeing to...

Despite the indignities of serving in a conflict-mired country and living in a decaying hotel, U.S. diplomats posted to Yemen have had one major perk to look forward to: Starwood points. Lots and lots of them, entitling them to dozens of free nights at Sheraton, W Hotels and Westin properties worldwide. Alas, that's about to end, our colleague Ernesto Londoño reports. The hotel chain is expected to yank the Sheraton logo from the heavily fortified property — home to the diplos since political unrest broke out in Sanaa last year — by Jan. 1. ...