Ali Abdullah Saleh (21 March 1942-4 December 2017) was President of Yemen from 18 July 1978 to 27 February 2012, succeeding Abdul Karim Abdullah al-Arashi and preceding Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi. From 1978 to 1990 he was the ruler of North Yemen, leading a unified Yemen from 1990 until the 2012 Arab Spring protests led to his resignation. In 2017, he was assassinated by the Houthis.
Biography[]
Ali Abdullah Saleh was born on 21 March 1942 in Bait el-Ahmar, Yemen to a Shia Muslim family. He had less than elementary school education, and he had a military career instead, and on 17 July 1978 Colonel Saleh was elected as President of North Yemen after the assassination of Ahmad al-Ghashmi; he was allegedly the one who assassinated President Ibrahim al-Hamdi in 1977. Saleh was the leader of Yemen for 34 years, with North Yemen and South Yemen being united in 1990 at the end of the Cold War. During his rule over a reunified Yemen, he had to combat both the Shi'ite Houthis and the Sunni al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, two dangerous insurgent groups. The Southern Movement sought to restore South Yemeni independence for the Sunnis in the south from the Shi'ites of the north, and Saleh had the support of the United States in fighting the rebels. However, he was deposed in 2012 during the Arab Spring, and in 2015 he assisted the Houthis in their usurpation of power and war with Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi's government in hopes of regaining power. On 3 December 2017, Saleh announced that he was open to peace talks with Saudi Arabia, which could lead to a peace deal to end the Yemeni Civil War. Unfortunately, the next day, Saleh was killed by sniper bullets from Houthi soldiers as they assaulted his home, and his home was blown up. This dashed any hopes for a quick peace deal with Saudi Arabia, and the civil war raged on.