Small Wars Journal

The Other War in Yemen - For Control of the Country’s Internet

Thu, 11/29/2018 - 12:59am

The Other War in Yemen - For Control of the Country’s Internet by Elias Groll - Foreign Policy

In June of this year, a new internet service provider quietly came online in Yemen. Built with funding from the United Arab Emirates and with Chinese equipment, the service was dubbed AdenNet. And with its launch, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi’s government in Yemen opened a minor new front against its Houthi opponents.

While coverage of Yemen’s civil war has focused on the devastating physical destruction—tens of thousands dead and a looming famine—another conflict has been playing out in the background: a war for control of the country’s internet.

It began when Houthi rebels swept into Yemen’s capital of Sanaa in 2014. They not only seized the seat of power, but they also captured the country’s major internet infrastructure, allowing the group to filter the internet, carry out surveillance of web traffic, and even mine cryptocurrency, according to a new report from the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future…

Read on.