Yemen has slowly been getting more international attention. A few weeks ago I was meant to go on Al Jazeera, but my appearance was cancelled at the last minute because, I was told, of other “breaking news”. Curious, I turned on BBC and searched the internet to find out what the headline-grabbing story could be. Could it be the death of civilians in Helmand and Kandahar? Or a terrorist attack somewhere? No, the Doha-based news channel was leading on clashes between government troops and Shia fighters in northern Yemen, which have reportedly left dozens of people dead.

In Britain, the story received no coverage at all. But Al Jazeera probably called this one correctly. For Yemen is (or should be)international news. The Bin Laden family’s ancestral home may, after Somalia and Pakistan, become the next battleground in the struggle against extremism. Don’t be surprised if a future Tory government ends up having to think almost as much about Sanaa as Islamabad.

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