High Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda in Yemen

After 9/11, Edmund J. Hull was sent as ambassador to Yemen, where he served until mid-2004. Previously, he served both Presidents Clinton and Bush as Deputy, then Acting, Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the Department of State. A career foreign service officer, he also served as director for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs, deputy chief of mission in Embassy Cairo, director for Near East Affairs on the National Security Council, and director for Northern Gulf Affairs (Iraq and Iran) during Operation Desert Storm.

A graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, he was appointed its first diplomat-in-residence after departing Yemen. Ambassador Hull has received numerous honors including the CIA’s George H. W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, a Presidential Meritorious Service Award for duty in Yemen and the State Department’s Award for Excellence in the Direction and Management of Overseas Missions for work as Deputy Chief of Mission in Cairo. Ambassador Hull’s views on Yemen have been featured on 60 Minutes, CNN, the New York Times, and Al Jazeera. His op ed Al Qaeda’s Shadowland ran in the New York Times on January 11, 2010.

His book High-Value Target: Countering Al Qaeda in Yemen was published by Potomac Books in April, 2011. The American Academy of Diplomacy has selected High-Value Target for the 2011 Douglas Dillon Award for Distinguished Writing on Diplomacy.