In Yemen, kidnapping is a growing business

Whenever we find ourselves strapped for cash, my closest friend in Yemen — an American citizen — and I joke that I should arrange for his kidnapping. We would surreptitiously take him to my village with the aim of eventually ransoming him for enough money to allow us to never have to work another day in our lives. He always responds by stressing that his country won’t pay, but inevitably someone will point out the possibility that the Qataris might. Such jokes are drawn from an increasing phenomenon in Yemen: a foreigner gets kidnapped, the kidnappers demand a ransom, and then, allegedly, Qatar — via its allies in Sanaa — steps in to pay the ransom, securing the hostages release. Kidnappings of foreigners in Yemen are far from new; the first incidents took place in the 1990s, in the south of the country. However, in the vast majority of cases,