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Attention turned again to Yemen after Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) spokesman Nasser Bin Ali Al-Ansi claimed responsibility for the 7 January massacre at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, in a video released on 14 January by AQAP’s media arm Al-Malahim. Ansi’s claim that AQAP had planned the “blessed battle of Paris”, as he referred to the attack that left 12 people dead, tallied with the claims of the two attackers, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi: Chérif made a similar claim in an interview with French television channel BFMTV, while he was under siege in Dammartin-en-Goële, where the brothers were killed on 9 January.

No one expected a quiet year in the Gulf, given the ongoing conflicts and ugly groundswell of sectarianism throughout the wider region. But while much of the news agenda in 2014 was filled with foreseeable preoccupations – squabbles between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC), the further deterioration of the situation in Yemen, tentative rapprochement with Iran, ongoing tensions in Bahrain, questions over succession – the main event of the year came as a surprise. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)’s takeover of Mosul in June, and the group’s subsequent seizing of swathes of Iraq, cut the year into two halves: before ISIL, and after.

On 15 November, the UAE cabinet approved a list of 85 groups it said were terrorist organisations, including a number of western-based organisations as well as groups more widely accepted as terrorists. While there is little debate about the inclusion of groups such as Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State on such lists, the inclusion of Islamist non-governmental organisations and think tanks is surprising; such groups seem in the main to have been chosen because of their links to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose affiliates the UAE has been targeting with particular vigour since 2011.

In mid-October, Saudi Arabia’s Makkah Online news site ran a story saying that 334 people who had completed the kingdom’s terrorist rehabilitation programme had returned to terrorist groups. Quoting an “official source”, the paper said there was a recidivism rate of around 12% among participants, and around 19.2% among those who had been transferred from detention in Guantánamo Bay. In the past, the Saudis have boasted of even lower recidivism rates. In 2008, Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef Bin Abdelaziz – interior minister since 2012 and the standard-bearer for the relatively high-profile Saudi deradicalisation programme – claimed that, of 3,000 people who had taken part, only around 35 had gone back to their terrorist ways; 3% recidivism is another figure often quoted.

Saudi Arabia’s strategy to combat extremism – the Prevention, Rehabilitation and Aftercare (PRAC) strategy – developed in the aftermath of the May 2003 bombings of residential compounds in Riyadh. It involves several ministries, but is led by the Ministry of Interior – specifically Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef, who has been minister since November 2012, and was previously assistant to the interior minister for security affairs (since 1999). Sometimes discussed as a contender for the Saudi throne, Mohammed Bin Nayef rose to prominence in mid-2003 when jihadist Ali Abedlrahman Al-Ghamdi handed himself over to him; the extent of the prince’s personal commitment was further showcased in 2009, when he survived an assassination attempt by Yemeni-born Abdullah Al-Asiri

Qatar and the UK signed a security agreement during Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani’s recent visit to London, which will see greater co-operation between their security agencies, including more sharing of information. The memorandum of understanding, signed by Qatari foreign minister Khalid Bin Mohamed Al-Attiyah and British home secretary Theresa May on 28 October, has been in negotiation since March, when May made a visit to Doha. Costs will be covered by Qatar.The Home Office said the agreement was part of the government plan to develop relationships with countries that bring strategic and economic benefits to the UK. “We are pleased to be working in partnership with the Qatari government,” it said.

Shiite Houthi militias have continued their advance against Al-Qaeda-linked militants in central Yemen, as newly appointed Yemeni Prime Minister Khaled Bahah struggles to form a government in Sanaa. Employing a strategy that relies largely on treaties with local tribes, the Houthis have been able to push hard against Ansar Al-Sharia (AAS), an affiliate of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), in areas like the city of Radaa in Al-Bayda and Al-Odain and Al-Sadda in Ibb. Recruiting locals to man checkpoints vastly expands Houthi capacity, and also enables the group to bridge the sectarian divide in some Sunni areas (though this remains a challenge).

In the very early hours of 23 September, Gulf Arab nations joined the United States in a series of bombing raids on jihadist targets in Syria. The raids were intended as much to show regional accord as to inflict damage on the so-called Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS). Fighter planes from the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain took part, along with Jordan, while Qatar played a “supporting role”, understood to have involved its Mirage jets conducting damage assessments after the event.

Saudi Arabia has donated $100m to the UN Counter-Terrorism Centre (UNCTT), as it did in August 2013 (GSN 953/13). Riyadh gave $10m towards setting up the New York-based UNCCT in 2011; the centre has held conferences – including one in Riyadh in partnership with the Saudi government in February 2013 – but has not delivered much in the way of practical improvements to global security.

Riyadh has given $1bn to the Lebanese armed forces, to help them fight Islamist militants launching attacks from Syria. News of the donation was delivered by former Lebanese prime minister Saad Al-Hariri, who is close to the Saudi leadership, at a news conference at King Abdullah Bin Abdelaziz’s palace in Jeddah on 6 August. Hariri said King Abdullah had told him he had issued the order to give the money, at a time when Lebanese security forces were engaged in a battle with Sunni Islamists for the town of Arsal.

Six Saudi members of Al-Qaeda launched an attack in the southern province of Najran on 4 July, and at least ten people – including five of the attackers – were killed in subsequent fighting. Accounts of the incident vary, but according to the Saudi interior ministry, the assailants attacked a security patrol at the Wadiah border post with Yemen, killing its commander. They then stole a car and drove north towards Sharurah, where they were confronted by security forces who killed three of them and captured a fourth.

Iraqis used to point to electricity supply problems as an endemic issue under Saddam Hussein, but they did not go away with the US-led invasion. Shortfalls in power services have added to disillusionment with Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s government, and are now challenging the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) which – along with Sunni allies – has seized large swathes of Iraq, renaming itself the Islamic State, and triumphantly claiming its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, is the caliph of Muslims everywhere.

As Sunni militants extended their control in Iraq, Iran moved quickly to reinforce its Shiite powerbase. According to an Iraqi source in Baghdad, Major General Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, arrived in the Iraqi capital on the morning of 12 June, together with a team of senior IRGC officials. “He brought 45 of the officers who are running the war in Syria,” the source told GSN. “He was fuming. They have few options.” Suleimani – a regular visitor to Baghdad whom the Kurds have described as Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s “number one adviser” (GSN 931/3), is reported to have personally inspected defensive positions to the north of Baghdad. This fits with his reputation as being a hands-on tactical commander as well as the chief strategist of Iran’s policy in Iraq and Syria.

The fall of Mosul to jihadists from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, or ISIS) on 10 June has sent shockwaves through the region and beyond. As the Sunni insurgents advanced from their strongholds in Al-Anbar, the Iraqi army seemed to melt away, allowing ISIL to extend its gains in the north, the Kurds to step into the vacuum in their coveted Kirkuk, and militias to proliferate on both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide. Within days, the US said it was contemplating air strikes, as Iraq lunged back into deep sectarian conflict. At the time of writing, militants from ISIL controlled a significant number of towns in Nineveh, Salahaddin and northern Diyala, including Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit and Tal Afar, between Mosul and the border with Syria, where ISIL also controls a swathe of territory. Iraq’s biggest oil refinery at Bayji had been shut down and was under attack by militants, and there was fighting in Baquba, just 60km north of Baghdad

The interior ministry said on 7 May that it had uncovered a terrorist organisation with links to extremists in Yemen and Syria, and arrested 62 people – a Palestinian, a Yemeni, a Pakistani, and the rest Saudi. The ministry said it had raided a laboratory making electronic devices used for bombing. It said the organisation was involved in smuggling weapons and people – including known terrorists Arwa Baghdadi and Rima Al-Jarish ­– across the southern border.