Ali Abdullah Saleh

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Lore & Background

A veteran and officer of the North Yemen civil war, Saleh consolidated power and restored civilian rule after al-Ghashmi's assassination in 1978. Despite military defeat against South Yemen in the Second Yemenite War, a rebellion, and multiple coup attempts, Saleh managed to bring stability to North Yemen by the mid-1980s. After South Yemen became unstable following the 1986 crisis and the fall of communism, Saleh achieved reunification as President of the new Republic of Yemen, sharing power with Ali Salem al-Beidh, Mohsen al-Ahmar, and Abdullah al-Ahmar through a Presidential Council. After al-Beidh left the Council in 1993, Saleh's forces defeated Southern forces in a brief civil war in July 1994. From 1994 onward, Saleh returned to autocratic rule through rule by decree, and was confirmed by elections in 1999, 2006, and a controversial constitutional referendum in 2001. He was ousted as president in 2012 and succeeded by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. In May 2015, Saleh openly allied with the Houthis during the Yemeni civil war, but in December 2017 he declared his withdrawal from the coalition and sided with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and President al-Hadi. On 4 December 2017, he was killed by a Houthi sniper during a battle in Sanaa.

Reader's Guide

Saleh was born on 21 March 1947 to a poor Zaydi family in Beit al-Ahmar village from the Sanhan clan. He joined the Royal Armed Forces in 1958, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1963, and participated in the 1962 Nasserist-inspired coup. He attained the rank of major by 1969, became a full colonel in 1976, and was appointed military governor of Taiz in 1977. After al-Ghashmi's assassination in 1978, Saleh was elected president of North Yemen on 17 July 1978. He ordered the execution of 30 officers on 10 August 1978, was promoted to major general in 1980, and elected secretary-general of the General People's Congress on 30 August 1982. He was re-elected president of North Yemen in 1983. In the late 1980s, under international pressure, he permitted Yemen's Jewish citizens to travel freely abroad.

Did You Know?

• Saleh was killed by a Houthi sniper on 4 December 2017; reports that he was killed while trying to flee his compound in a car were denied by his party officials, who said he was killed at his house.
• Saleh's cousin, Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, is often confused with the same-named leading family of the Hashid tribe, with which the Sanhan clan was an ally.
• Saleh married Asama Saleh in 1964.

From Infantryman to Head of State

Saleh entered the Royal North Yemeni Armed Forces in 1958 as a young infantryman from a destitute Zaydi family in a small village near Sanaa. Three years later he was admitted to the Royal Military Academy, and by 1963 he had been commissioned as a second lieutenant in the armoured corps. Though he was not personally a Nasserist, he took part in the 1962 military coup that toppled King Muhammad al-Badr and established the Yemen Arab Republic. The subsequent civil war accelerated his advancement; by 1969 he held the rank of major. Staff-officer training in Iraq during 1970–71 brought him to lieutenant colonel, and by 1976 he commanded a mechanised brigade as a full colonel. President Ahmad al-Ghashmi appointed him military governor of Taiz in 1977. When al-Ghashmi was assassinated in June 1978, Saleh was placed on a four-man provisional presidency council. Just three weeks later, parliament elected him president of North Yemen, a post he held simultaneously with the roles of chief of staff and commander-in-chief. Observers noted that he rose not through tribal prestige but through his own initiative, building a patronage network with his seven brothers and extended kin in key positions.

Unification and the 1994 Civil War

After surviving the Second Yemenite War against South Yemen, a domestic rebellion, and several coup attempts, Saleh had nonetheless managed to restore a degree of stability in North Yemen by the mid-1980s, earning the backing of both Washington and Moscow. The political landscape shifted dramatically after the 1986 crisis in the south and the collapse of communism, which left South Yemen in disarray. Seizing the moment, Saleh achieved the long-sought reunification of the two Yemeni states in 1990, becoming the first president of the new Republic of Yemen. Power was initially shared through a Presidential Council that included South Yemen's last leader Ali Salem al-Beidh, prominent general Mohsen al-Ahmar, and tribal and Islamist leader Abdullah al-Ahmar. Tensions along North-South lines proved irreconcilable: al-Beidh departed the Council in 1993, and a short civil war erupted the following year. Saleh's forces, reportedly bolstered by fighters from the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, delivered a decisive defeat to Southern armies in July 1994. From that point forward, he abandoned the collegial arrangement and governed by decree, a style of autocratic rule that would define the rest of his tenure.

Shifting Alliances and the War on Terror

As the newly unified Yemen's president, Saleh initially alienated both the United States and Saudi Arabia by voicing opposition to the 1991 Gulf War, a stance that contributed to the departure of more than 800,000 Yemeni workers from Saudi territory. Once he had consolidated absolute authority after the 1994 civil war, however, his foreign policy pivoted sharply. During the post-9/11 war on terror, he cultivated considerably deeper ties with Western powers, particularly Washington. Yet this rapprochement was not without controversy: evidence later surfaced suggesting that Saleh may have exploited, and in some cases encouraged, Islamic terrorist activity both to court Western support and to carry out politically motivated disruptions at home. Domestically, his rule from 1994 onward was marked by confirmed elections in 1999 and 2006 and a contentious constitutional referendum in 2001, alongside a period of relatively stable economic growth. That stability coexisted with a growing insurgency led by the Ansar Allah movement, commonly known as the Houthis, which would ultimately become the defining security challenge of his later presidency.

Ouster, Final Betrayal, and Death

The Arab Spring protests that swept across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011 reached Yemen and made Saleh's grip on power increasingly untenable. By 2012 he was forced to resign, handing the presidency to Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had served as vice president since 1994 and as acting president since 2011. Saleh's political life did not end there. In May 2015, as the Yemeni civil war intensified, the Zaydi Shia leader openly threw his support behind the Houthi movement, whose forces and allied insurgents succeeded in capturing the capital, Sanaa, prompting Hadi to resign and flee the country. Yet by December 2017, Saleh had reversed course again, publicly withdrawing from his Houthi coalition and aligning himself with his former adversaries: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and President Hadi. The alliance collapsed within days. On 4 December 2017, amid fighting between Houthi and Saleh-loyalist forces in Sanaa, the Houthis branded him a traitor. A Houthi sniper killed him; his party officials insisted he was shot at his residence, while other reports claimed he was struck while attempting to escape his compound by car.

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