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Yemen’s main oil export pipeline was blown up again on 13 June. Local officials told news agencies that the flow of crude had to be stopped after tribesmen attacked a section of the line in pipeline. The pipeline, which goes to the Red Sea, had just been repaired following a similar attack on 24 May.

Two Gulf banks – Bank of Muscat in Oman and Rakbank in the UAE – were the victims of a brazen global $45m cyber-heist, when hackers accessed the systems of their card-processing companies and used the data to withdraw millions of dollars from cash machines around the world. The highly co-ordinated attack – which involved harvesting pins, erasing withdrawal limits and encoding the magnetic strips on dummy cards – saw so-called casher cells swoop on ATMs in more than 20 countries in just a few hours. A total of nine people – seven in the US and two in Germany – have so far been arrested, but the hackers themselves remain at large.


On 20 April, Iraq held its first countrywide elections since the withdrawal of US troops in late 2011. The vote for provincial councils, widely touted as a litmus test for Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki ahead of parliamentary elections in 2014, was seen also as a test of how well Iraq’s political institutions and security forces could handle nationwide polls.

More than 60 people were killed in a series of bombings in Iraq on 19 March, the eve of the tenth anniversary of the US-led invasion. Car bombs, suicide bombs and roadside bombs ripped through Baghdad, targeting mainly Shiite areas; newswires reported attacks on a marketplace, government security forces, small restaurants, labourers and bus stops in the space of just a couple of hours.

The US Department of State has added Saudi national and senior member of Al-Qaeda Ahmed Abdullah Saleh Al-Khazmari Al-Zahrani – better known as Abu Maryam Al-Zahrani – to its list of specially designated global terrorists.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s 19 December decrees brought Yemen’s counterterrorism operations under one roof for the first time, making it clear that, in line with US wishes, Hadi considers the fight against terrorism a military affair.

The Iraqi government’s 20 December raids on staff of finance minister Rafi Al-Issawi triggered the strongest protests Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki has faced since coming to power in 2006. The surge of anger in restive Al-Anbar combined with that over army presence and alleged prison rapes in Nineveh, and later spread to Salah Ad-Din and Sunni parts of Baghdad. In the weeks since, tens of thousands of Sunnis have poured onto the streets to express a range of frustrations, blocking the main trade route to Jordan and Syria, and sharpening the sectarian divide.

Yemen is nine months into a transition period envisaged to last two years and intended to steer the troubled state towards multi-party democratic elections. But the country remains wracked with violence. A strong Al-Qaeda presence in the south, tensions within the military, immense poverty and malnutrition are just some of the challenges facing President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi,who took over in February after 33 years of rule by Ali Abdullah Saleh.

A series of bomb explosions in central Manama killed two young Asians on 5 November. The attacks came just days after the government banned all rallies and gatherings – the opposition says they must not be used as an excuse for further crackdown.

There have been mass protests in Eastern Province after security forces killed two men in a raid on a house in Awamiyah on 26 September.

Inspired by events in North Africa, hundreds of angry Yemenis stormed the US compound in Sanaa on 13 September. The violence was nominally in protest at a film insulting Islam, and has been encouraged by terrorist groups, but at its heart lies a far more fundamental – and more problematic – frustration.

A member of Italy’s Carabinieri military police who was kidnapped on 29 July has been freed by his captors.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the weakness of central government, and last year seized several southern areas. The US has been backing a major offensive against AQAP in recent months, with considerable success: in June, security forces regained control of regions held by Ansar Al-Sharia, an AQAP affiliate.

The authorities in Bahrain have long sought definitive proof that Iran and its Gulf proxy network, Hizbollah Al-Hejaz, are actively undertaking militant actions inside Bahrain. Based on contacts within Bahrain’s security services, GSN has periodically reported the thin gruel of evidence that has built up over time, largely consisting of 1990s-era arms caches unearthed by new building activity or occasional evidence of Bahrainis travelling to Iran, Lebanon and Iraq to receive training or money from Tehran’s intelligence services.

A US Navy supply ship fired on a fishing boat just off the coast of the UAE on 16 July, according to UAE state news agency Wam.