- Title: Profile of Yemen's ex-president Saleh five years following his death
- Date: 4th December 2022
- Summary: SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - JANUARY 4, 2010) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (MUTE) ***WARNING: CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** VARIOUS OF SALEH MEETING WITH SAUDI OFFICIALS TO DISCUSS REGIONAL SECURITY CAIRO, EGYPT (FILE - JUNE 29, 2010) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SALEH MEETING WITH FORMER EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT HOSNI MUBARAK SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - FEBRUARY 2, 2011) (REUTERS) YEMENI PARLIAMENT IN SESSION SALEH SEATED ON THE PODIUM SALEH ANNOUNCING THAT HE WILL NOT EXTEND HIS TERM IN OFFICE SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - FEBRUARY 3, 2011) (REUTERS) THOUSANDS OF ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTERS GATHERED FOR A DEMONSTRATION ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTERS CHANTING SLOGANS SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - FEBRUARY 22, 2011) (REUTERS) SALEH WALKING TO LECTERN TO ADDRESS THE NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) FORMER YEMEN PRESIDENT, ALI ABDULLAH SALEH, SAYING: "To those who want to take the seat of power I say, come in a civilised way, through the ballot boxes in the parliamentary elections or the presidential elections." SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - MARCH 18, 2011) (REUTERS) ANTI-GOVERNMENT PROTESTERS CHANTING IN SQUARE THICK BLACK SMOKE RISING BEHIND THE CROWD OF PROTESTERS SANAA, YEMEN (FILE - APRIL 1, 2011) (REUTERS) THOUSANDS OF PRO-GOVERNMENT SUPPORTERS GATHERED IN SABEEN SQUARE SALEH WAVING TO SUPPORTERS PRO-GOVERNMENT SUPPORTERS WAVING BANNERS AND PICTURES OF SALEH (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) FORMER YEMENI PRESIDENT, ALI ABDULLAH SALEH, SAYING: ''I promise you that I will defend the Yemeni people with my blood and soul. I will sacrifice (SALEH'S VOICE DROWNED OUT BY ROAR OF CROWD)... I will sacrifice my blood and all precious things for the sake of the great Yemeni people.'' RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (FILE - MAY 10, 2011) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR AL DIREYA PALACE FLAGS OF GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL (GCC) COUNTRIES SAUDI KING ABDULLAH BIN ABDULAZIZ LEAVING THE MEETING ROOM FOLLOWED BY THE EMIR OF KUWAIT SHEIKH SABAH AL AHMAD AL-SABAH, KING OF BAHRAIN HAMADA BIN ISA AL KHALIFA, EMIR OF QATAR SHEIKH HAMAD BIN KHALIFA AL THANI, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER FOR CABINET AFFAIRS OF THE SULTANATE OF OMAN FAHD BIN MAHMOUD AL SAID, RULER OF DUBAI AND VICE-PRESIDENT OF UAE SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL-MAKTOUM AND QATAR PRIME MINISTER AND FOREIGN MINISTER HAMMAD BIN JASEM
- Embargoed: 18th December 2022 15:07
- Keywords: Ali Abdullah Saleh Anniversary Profile Yemen
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: Yemen
- Topics: Middle East,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA003431604122022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY
Five years after the killing of Yemen's ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh and more than a decade after mass 2011 protests, the country still broils with turmoil.
Killed in December 2017 at the age of 75 outside the capital Sanaa by the Houthi movement, Saleh became the ruler of North Yemen in 1978 at a time when the south was a separate communist country, and went on to lead the unified country after the two states merged in 1990.
Born in 1942 near Sanaa, Saleh received a limited education before joining the military as a non-commissioned officer.
His first break came when President Ahmed al-Ghashmi, who came from the same Hashed tribe as Saleh, appointed him military governor of Taiz, North Yemen's second city. When Ghashmi was killed by a bomb in 1978, Saleh replaced him.
In 1990, an array of domestic and regional circumstances propelled North Yemen under Saleh and the socialist South Yemen state into a unification that neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which shares a long porous border with Yemen, at first opposed.
Saleh angered Riyadh by staying close to Saddam Hussein during the 1990-91 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, leading to the expulsion of up to one million Yemenis from Saudi Arabia.
But Saleh then won plaudits from Western powers for carrying out economic reforms drawn up by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and made efforts to attract foreign investors.
His General People's Congress party swept to victory in a 1993 parliamentary election, the first held after unification. South Yemen tried but failed to secede in a brief civil war in 1994 and Saleh then proceeded to move closer to Saudi Arabia, allowing an influx of its radical Wahhabi form of Sunni Islam.
Opponents often complained that Saleh failed to address the basic needs of Yemen's people, two-thirds of whom live on less than $2 per day. Yet Saleh managed to keep Western and Arab powers on his side.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, Washington became more aware of Yemen as a source of foot soldiers for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Though he was born in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden himself could trace his roots back to Yemen's Hadramaut region.
Saleh cooperated with U.S. authorities, and the CIA started taking action against wanted figures. But by 2007, militants had regrouped in Yemen, and in 2008 they announced that their Saudi and Yemeni wings had united under the banner of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia, the United States, and other allies responded by stepping up financial support to bolster Saleh's rule.
But popular uprisings that toppled Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak in 2011 resonated in Yemen, drawing tens of thousands to daily protests in Sanaa and in Taiz to the south, threatening Saleh's apparent dynastic ambitions.
The bombing of Saleh's compound in June 2011, an apparent assassination attempt, left Saleh with severe burns, forcing him to seek treatment in Saudi Arabia.
Ever nimble, Saleh reneged on three deals to transfer power before the attempt on his life and shrugged off U.S. and Saudi pressure to stay in exile, making good on a promise to return home the following September.
But international pressure redoubled in October when the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution demanding he sign a handover plan brokered by Gulf neighbours. France and Britain hinted at European Union sanctions against him.
Saleh struggled to quell the protests against his rule as a spate of gun battles pushed Yemen closer to civil war.
The violence culminated in deadly clashes between forces of the Hashed tribal group and government troops. Under mounting pressure, Saleh agreed to sign the accord in November which led to him relinquishing power to his former Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in February 2012.
Since relinquishing power, Saleh has continued to receive treatment in Saudi Arabia and the United States for injuries sustained during the assassination attempt.
He was killed in 2017 outside the capital Sanaa by the Houthi movement.
Saleh once compared his 33-year rule of Yemen to "dancing on the heads of snakes". If he has been a determined survivor, he has also been a charismatic and often popular ruler with a canny understanding of the workings of Yemeni society.
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