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.