Member of the Yemeni army on patrol in the town of Old Marib, Yemen's oldest city, where caravans would stop on their way from Wadi Hadramawt to Sana'a. The town fell into disuse after being bombed during the civil war of the 1960s. As the centre of Yemen's oil industry, security around Marib is particularly important to the government, in a desert region where large areas of territory are controlled by largely autonomous tribesmen.