In-Depth Archive

The “formal” departure of Ali Abdullah Saleh from Yemen’s political arena in February, after more than three decades as president, did not bring an end to the country’s dangerous unrest. To the contrary, the weak central government in Sanaa has been weakened further; the military remains divided; entrepreneurs of violence have expanded their geographical influence; sectarianism has taken a violent turn; the shortage of public goods and law and order has become severe; and the country is atop this year’s Forbes list of the “World’s Worst Economies.” In Washington, Riyadh and Brussels, fears are high that the current political and […]

In March 2008, a widow in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency made a public appeal to Mangal Bagh Afridi, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) militant group operating in the area, to help arbitrate a land dispute. Several of her family members had been killed in the dispute, and the formal justice system was not responding to the crimes. Bagh took up her case, ruled in her favor and promptly sent armed militia members to punish the people he determined were responsible for the deaths. Soon afterward, wealthy families, often the targets of kidnapping and extortion, started appealing to Bagh for help […]

Later this month, Somalia’s eight-year political transition is scheduled to end with the declaration of a “post-transition” government. Casual observers will be forgiven for assuming such a step signals that, after 21 years of complete state collapse, a functional central government in Somalia is now in place. The reality is that the post-transition government will be unable to project its authority beyond much of the capital, Mogadishu. Most of the country and parts of the capital itself remain under the de facto control of autonomous strongmen, self-proclaimed regional states, clan militias and the jihadi group al-Shabab. Of these, only al-Shabab […]