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.
Also known as: Haydar Abu Bakr al-Attas
Activities and affiliations
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Yemen state institutionsPrime Minister, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's CouncilMain
Government and administration -
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1960Joined the Arab Nationalist Movement
- 1963Joined the National Liberation Front (NLF)
- 1969–1978Minister of Public Works, Transport and Construction
- 1985–1986Prime Minister of the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen
- 1986–1990Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Council (head of state)
- 1990–1994First prime minister of the united Republic of Yemen
- 1994Prime minister of the secessionist Democratic Republic of Yemen
- 1994–2003In exile in Jordan, the UAE and Saudi Arabia
Related historical events
Exile, amnesty and return
After the southern secessionist government collapsed in July 1994, al-Attas left for Jordan and then lived in exile in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The government of united Yemen charged him with responsibility for the secessionist activity and, in a 1998 trial held in his absence, sentenced him to death. A general amnesty in May 2003 allowed him to return to Yemen; the exile had lasted roughly nine years. He afterward withdrew from office, though he remained a figure invoked in Yemeni politics through the 2000s. On 15 October 2024 he returned to Aden for the first time in nearly three decades, reportedly accompanying Rashad al-Alimi, chairman of the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). Reports linked the visit to Saudi efforts to manage disputes inside the PLC and tensions with the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC). It followed his June 2023 visit to Hadhramaut Governorate.