Photojournalist and AFP contributor Nabil Hasan al-Quaety killed in Yemen

He was gunned down by unknown assailants while in his car, moments after leaving his home in the southern city of Aden. Security officials told AFP that the armed gunmen escaped.

By ZACHARY KEYSER
A Houthi security officer reacts at the site of an air strike launched by the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen May 16, 2019 (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI)
A Houthi security officer reacts at the site of an air strike launched by the Saudi-led coalition in Sanaa, Yemen May 16, 2019
(photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI)
Yemini photojournalist and AFP contributor Nabil Hasan al-Quaety, 34, was shot and killed in Yemen on Tuesday.
He was gunned down by unknown assailants while in his car, moments after leaving his home in the southern city of Aden. Security officials told AFP that the armed gunmen escaped.
Before his untimely death, Quaety worked for publications such as the AFP as well as other major local news organizations, covering the five-year Yemini Civil War and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis that followed as a direct result of the conflict.
His work drew international recognition in 2016 for a submission that sets the internationally recognized government against the Houthi rebels. Judges for Britain's Rory Peck Awards described his submission as "rare and outstanding."
"What do we know about Yemen? We know there's a nasty, tragic war, but we never see it. There must be almost nowhere harder to get into and to get pictures out of," the judges said, according to AFP.
For combat photojournalists working in the field, a precariousness day-to-day life comes with the territory of the profession. Not only because of the grave positions they insert themselves into daily in order to tell the story, but also because of the work they publish, which can be deemed controversial on its own. When covering two warring parties, it's more than likely someone is bound to get upset.
Quaety escaped death in 2019, when he survived an Iran-backed Houthi drone strike that targeted Yemen's largest airbase, Al-Anad, located north of the southern port of Aden. He was covering a military parade at the time.
"Targeting journalist Nabil al-Quaety in an organized and planned assassination is an attack on the press in Yemen, and it reflects the failures and mistakes of all the warring parties," Najib Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen's Information Ministry, told AFP.
"We condemn this crime against Quaety, whose work was to cover events and facts in pictures. It seems that his work has caused outrage among some extremist parties."
Ghallab has called for "a clear and transparent" investigation into Quaety's assassination,

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He leaves behind a wife and three children, with another on the way.
“We are shocked by the senseless killing of a courageous journalist doing his job despite threats and intimidation. Through his work with AFP over the past five years, Nabil had helped to show a global audience the full horror of the conflict in Yemen," said Phil Chetwynd, AFP’s Global News Director. "The quality of his work had been widely recognized, notably as a finalist for the Rory Peck Award. The thoughts of everybody at AFP are with his wife and children today.”
WHY IS YEMEN AT WAR?
Yemen’s internal splits have festered for years.
North and south Yemen united into a single state in 1990. Southern separatists tried to secede from the North in 1994, but their forces were beaten. More power and resources flowed to the northern capital Sanaa.
Former president Ali Abdullah Saleh had ruled North Yemen since 1978 and the unified state since1990. His relatives controlled core parts of the army and economy. Critics said corruption was rife.
In the far North, some of the Zaydi sect of Shi’ite Islam chafed as their heartland became impoverished. In the late 1990s, some Zaydis formed the Houthi group, which fought Yemen’s army and grew friendly with Iran.
The Muslim Brotherhood and other Sunni Islamists gained strength, particularly under General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, who built a power base in the army. Jihadist fugitives formed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
When pro-democracy mass protests broke out during the Arab Spring of 2011, some of Saleh’s former allies turned on him. The army split; separatists rallied in the South, and the Houthis seized more areas.
Yemen’s Gulf neighbors persuaded Saleh to step down. Deputy president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was elected in 2012 to a two-year term to oversee a democratic transition.
A “National Dialogue” of Yemen’s opposing groups began hashing out a new constitution, but things soon fell apart.
Hadi was widely considered weak and his administration corrupt. And Saleh’s allies undermined the transition. AQAP set up a mini-state and hit Sanaa with ever bloodier bombings.
IN LATE 2014, the Houthis seized Sanaa with help from pro-Saleh army units, forcing Hadi to share power. The Houthis and southern separatists rejected a proposed federal constitution.
The Houthis arrested Hadi in early 2015. He escaped and fled to Aden, pursued by the group. Saudi Arabia formed a Western-backed coalition of Sunni Muslim allies and intervened to prevent Iran from gaining influence on its border.
The Houthis and Saleh’s forces were driven from Aden and its environs in South Yemen, and from central Marib in 2015. Years of military stalemate followed, with the Houthis holding most of the easily defended highlands and the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
The coalition kept up intense air strikes, aiming to split the Houthis and Saleh. They imposed a partial blockade to stop Iran from arming the Houthis, something it denies doing. UN-backed talks went nowhere.
In 2017, Saleh abandoned his Houthi allies, hoping to cut a deal and regain power for his family. He was killed fleeing Sanaa and his loyalists turned on the Houthis.
Cracks in the alliance widened. Southern separatists supported by the UAE clashed with Saudi-backed fighters. The Saudis brought in Ahmar to command forces around Marib – a red flag for the UAE due to his link to the Muslim Brotherhood.
The death toll from air strikes and the near famine in Yemen prompted international outrage, making it harder for Western allies to continue military aid.
The deadlock and the unprecedented humanitarian crisis continues to this day.
Reuters contributed to this report.


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