Most people have either never heard of Yemen or know very little about it. The country is one of the world’s poorest, is home to Islamist terrorist groups and is beset by a war with the involvement of foreign actors.
Borealis is joined by Yemen specialist Gregory Johnsen to get a better understanding of how we got there and what the stakes are.
The Last Refuge: Yemen Al-qaeda And America’s War In Arabia
A gripping account of how al-Qaeda in Yemen rebounded from an initial defeat to once again threaten the United States.
Far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States and al-Qaeda are fighting a clandestine war of drones and suicide bombers in an unforgiving corner of Arabia.
About my guest Gregory Johnsen
Gregory D. Johnsen, a former Fulbright Fellow in Yemen, is a PhD candidate at Princeton University and the Michael Hastings National Security Fellow at BuzzFeed. A frequent guest on NPR, he has contributed essays to the New York Times. He lives in Ithaca, New York.
About the host Phil Gurski
Phil Gurski is the President and CEO of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd. and Programme Director for the Security, Economics and Technology (SET) hub at the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute (PDI). He worked as a senior strategic analyst at CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) from 2001-2015, specializing in violent Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism and radicalisation.
From 1983 to 2001 he was employed as a senior multilingual analyst at Communications Security Establishment (CSE – Canada’s signals intelligence agency), specialising in the Middle East.
Find out more about Phil Gurski
Chinese influence in Canada is getting worse and worse
Episode 287 – When will Canada take PRC meddling in its affairs seriously? That China has infiltrated Canadian society at so many levels is beyond doubt. “Police” stations, harassing dissidents, interfering in our elections, the list goes on and on. And, despite reports and inquiries these anti-democratic activities do not seem to garner the necessary…
How dangerous a threat to international security is AI?
Episode 286 – Is The Terminator in the offing? You cannot get far these days without some article and warning about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the possible extermination of humanity. How close are we to that and what can we do about it? Are there good sides to AI? I am joined by a true…
How US gun culture threatens international public safety
Episode 285 – Why are people seeing the US as an example to follow when it comes to gun violence? You cannot go a day, it seems, without a mass shooting in the US. Far too many deaths and injuries have been caused so much that the leading cause of death for people between one…
Email notifications
If the ins and outs of terrorism, extremism, national security and public safety are of interest to you, this website is a must. Register to receive more content from former Canadian intelligence analyst and author Phil Gurski on these issues.
