Activities and affiliations

Political and party leadership Yemen state institutions 1937–1986 ✕ Shot dead

Vice president who twice remade the leadership, killed by a comrade's guards

On the morning before the meeting, he told Lebanese Communist leader George Hawi, "Today we intend to make specific proposals, and if Ali Nasir rejects them, I'll pull out my gun and shoot myself."

A guerrilla of the National Liberation Front who became a soldier and politician, serving as minister of defense and vice president of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. He reorganized the army along Soviet lines and led the 1978 ouster of Salim Rubai Ali and the 1980 removal of Abd al-Fattah Ismail, reaching the core of power. He later opposed Ali Nasir Muhammad's economic liberalization and became a center of the opposition until, shot dead by presidential guards at the Politburo meeting of January 13, 1986, his killing prompted the officer corps to desert the president and ignited the South Yemen civil war.

Political and party leadership Yemen state institutions 1939–

South Yemeni policy conflict and the 1986 crisis

Before leaving he declared 'I have made too many concessions already. I will not make any more'; two months later the Aden civil war erupted.

After serving as South Yemen’s prime minister, he became party and state leader in 1980. He favored pragmatic adjustments in foreign relations and economic management, while conflict with Ismail’s faction intensified. He lost power after the 1986 Aden fighting and fled to North Yemen.

Government and administration Yemen state institutions 1939–

South Yemen's last head of state and the united republic's first prime minister

When the January 1986 gunfire broke out he was visiting India; he then negotiated a settlement in the USSR before returning to take the presidency.

A Hadhrami electrical engineer who rose through the National Liberation Front to become a minister and prime minister of South Yemen. After the January 1986 Aden fighting, he became president and steadied the state; as South Yemen's last head of state he led the 1990 unification and became the first prime minister of united Yemen. In the 1994 civil war he served as premier of the breakaway southern government, then went into exile.

Military command Yemen state institutions 1942–1986 ✕ Killed by gunfire at the meeting

South Yemen's defence minister, shot in the January 1986 Aden violence

On 13 January 1986 guards of Ali Nasir Muhammad opened fire on opposition Politburo members in the Central Committee meeting hall; he was killed there.

A South Yemeni soldier and politician who served as a Politburo member of the Yemeni Socialist Party and as minister of defence. He joined the National Liberation Front against British colonial rule, rose through the army after independence, and after the party split sided with the al-Tugma faction that supported Abdul Fattah Ismail. He was killed on 13 January 1986 when Ali Nasir Muhammad's guards opened fire on opposition Politburo members at the Central Committee meeting hall in Aden; his death was one of the triggers of the civil war that followed.

Government and administration Yemen state institutions 1942/1947–2017 ✕ killed in ; circumstances disputed

North Yemen's last president and unified Yemen's first head of state

In May 1988 North and South agreed to ease tensions, demilitarize the border, create a joint oil exploration area and allow passage on a national ID card, and in November 1989 they agreed in Aden on a 1981 draft unity constitution, leading to the declaration of the Republic of Yemen on 22 May 1990.

Yemeni military officer and politician. He joined the army in 1958, was commissioned in 1963 and fought in the North Yemen civil war, served as military governor of Taiz in 1977, and became president of North Yemen in 1978. He held that post until the North-South unification on 22 May 1990, then served as president of the Republic of Yemen until his resignation in 2012. He ruled autocratically from 1994, allied with the Houthis after the 2011 Yemeni revolution, broke with them in late 2017, and was killed on 4 December 2017.