Anarchy across southern Yemen likely to facilitate AQAP's unopposed expansion into new areas, including the coast

Key Points

• Exploiting a persistent security vacuum and the absence of effective state institutions, AQAP is in the process of asserting itself as the dominant actor across much of southern Yemen.
• The territory currently controlled by AQAP is larger than the area it held in 2011, when the group's area of control reached its peak during of the anti-Saleh popular uprising.
• Although AQAP is likely to prioritise consolidating its position along the Zinjibar-al-Mukalla coastal road in order to smuggle fighters and weapons to and from the Horn of Africa, the group is likely to expand its territorial control in northern Hadramawt, al-Dali' and al-Bayda' in the six-month outlook.