The Yemeni Republican Guard was an elite formation of the Yemeni Army formed in 1964 by North Yemen. The best-armed and best-trained unit of the Yemeni military, the Republican Guard was seen as the backbone of Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime, and despite its disbanding in 2012 after the Yemeni Revolution, it would go on to be re-formed under the Houthis with Ahmed Saleh as its leader. It fought alongside the Houthis in the Yemeni Civil War with a strength of 150,000 troops.