In the early 1990s terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia used explosives that came from Yemen. The border is , with much in the Rub' al Khali desert, or the "Empty Quarter". In October 2010 "The New York Times" called the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen "an emblem of the increasingly global threats emanating from Yemen: fighters from Al Qaeda, Shiite [Houthi] insurgents, drugs and arms smuggling and, well under the world’s radar, one of the largest flows of economic refugees on earth".