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A three-day military exercise by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) ground, air and naval units, which began on 22 April, was intended to test a range of Iranian-built missiles and other equipment.

Both parties have yet to deny or confirm the incident, but a reported clash between Saudi and Emirati patrol boats has attracted much media attention and highlighted the potential for friction among GCC allies that has provoked renewed fears for Gulf security

The government on 27 February declared a state of emergency in the southern province of Al-Dhalee,

President Barack Obama has committed the US to providing more assistance to the Sanaa government, but such promises carry real risks, especially when the donor has so little confidence in the recipient

As the international community debates its next steps on Iran’s nuclear programme, Washington has made a show of increasing its commitment to missile defence in the Gulf

The United States’ announcement of the deployment of missile defence systems in Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states signals a tougher tone towards Iran rather than any major new military initiative in the region. Many elements of the system are already in the Gulf, including US Navy

US security assistance to Yemen has been patchy over the last half decade, reflecting the ebb and flow of the US-Yemeni relationship. All the usual tools of US security assistance

United States policy on Iran is little clearer than it was the day President Barack Obama took office, according to GSN’s soundings among US diplomats and Central Command (Centcom) planners. Central tenets of policy, the means and ends, continue to be blown around by the storm of events in the Islamic Republic. And engagement has been thrown decisively off course by Iran’s festering domestic political crisis.

The division of responsibilities between Iran’s naval forces, outlined in a new report, will frustrate enemy attacks but not change the outcome of any future conflict with the United States

Yemen’s little-noticed southern unrest has finally gained some serious recognition with the 15 December publication of a Human Rights Watch report into the brutal reaction of state security services to the mostly peaceful southern protests. The report – In the Name of Unity: The Yemeni Government’s Brutal Response to Southern Movement Protests – documents the heavy-handed suppression of the Southern Movement (Al-Thawra Al-Janoubi) coalition.

Economic as well as political problems are adding to fears that Yemen is sliding towards state failure. The Kingdom’s military acceleration along the border in November illustrates the considerable force with which Saudi Arabia is prepared to intervene in its neighbour’s affairs

Since the beginning of 2009, there have been signs that the long-awaited overspill of jihadist violence from Yemen into Saudi Arabia has gathered pace, leading up to last month’s Saudi offensive against militant targets in the Yemeni borderlands.

The fighting in northern Yemen has long had a severe humanitarian impact, but it was only in October that refugee agencies were able to raise the profile of the crisis, after bombing attacks that struck civilian targets

It is not just through trade and financial controls that the United States and its allies are gradually encircling Iran in an effort to throttle the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions. And the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states are playing a larger role in this process than seemed likely earlier this decade, when Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz led a move towards rapprochement with Tehran. Thus, according to GSN’s contacts in the

Despite an increasingly sophisticated military infrastructure, a fatal crash and a number of technical faults at a recent air show have undermined President Ahmadinejad’s threats of retaliation if the US or Israel were to strike