Thebes Stage - Hall 12
This session discusses the sequel of Dr Michael Knights' successful book "25 Days to Aden", "The Race to Mukalla", which tells the story of UAE forces specialising in counterterrorism and their confrontation with Al-Qaeda in the port of Mukalla in southern Yemen.
Between 2015 and 2016, the war raged in the Middle East against terrorist groups seeking to establish new states under their control, particularly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but this book does not cover the parts of the war that are well known to the Western public, such as the destruction of Syrian and Iraqi cities such as Mosul and Raqqa. Instead, and through operation participants, it narrates -for the first time- documented details about the unknown parallel effort undertaken by Arab Gulf states in collaboration with Yemeni forces to prevent extremists from controlling the "Cradle of the Arabs" in the oil-rich Marib, and to drive terrorists out of Mukalla, a beautiful coastal city with abundant resources known as "the Rihanna of the Arabian Sea".
Michael Knights, a Jill and Jay Bernstein Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute, specialises in the Gulf states, Iraq, and Iran's military and security affairs. His platform, Militia Spotlight, provides comprehensive analysis of developments pertaining to Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq, of which he is a cofounder.
Frequent briefers on regional security affairs for the US government policymakers, congressional committees, and the US military officers, Dr Knights has extensive travel experience in Iraq, Yemen, and the Gulf states, and extensive experience collaborating with local security and military organisations in Yemen, the Gulf states, and Iraq.
Extensive research has been conducted by Dr Knights regarding the lessons learned from the US military operations in the Gulf since 1990.
After earning his doctorate from the Department of War Studies at King's College London, he oversaw information-collection teams in Iraq, Libya, and Yemen as the head of analysis for a variety of oil and security companies.
In the past, he was employed by the Gulf States Newsletter and Jane's Intelligence Review as a defence journalist.Sheikh Zayed Chair for Arabic and Islamic Studies at American University in Biuret