‘Dancing on heads of snakes’ finally proves fatal for Saleh
For 33 years Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled Yemen with an iron grip.
Skilled at weaving useful alliances and calculating risks, he was a master of the political game. But yesterday his luck ran out at the hands of the Houthi rebels who, until only days ago, were his comrades in arms.
Saleh was born on March 21, 1942, into a North Yemen family linked to the powerful Hashid tribal confederation.
He had a limited education and in 1958 joined the army as a non-commissioned officer. In 1962 he took part in the coup that turned North Yemen into the Yemen Arab Republic.
His big political break came when president Ahmed Al Ghashmi – who was also from the Hashid tribe – appointed Saleh military governor of Taiz, North Yemen’s second city. In 1978, Ghashmi was killed by a bomb. Saleh replaced him.
Overcoming entrenched tribal rivalries, he unified North and communist-ruled South Yemen by force and on May 22, 1990 was sworn in as president of a united country.
His regime did little to improve living standards in Yemen, still the poorest Arab nation today.
But Saleh managed to keep western and Arab powers on his side, styling himself as a key ally of the United States in its war on terrorism while enriching his own family with the tens of millions of dollars in American military aid that flowed to units commanded by his relatives.
But he angered Gulf Arab allies by staying close to Saddam Hussein during the 1990-1991 Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, leading to the expulsion of up to a million Yemenis from Saudi Arabia.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Yemen appeared on Washington’s radar as a source of foot soldiers for Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network. Although born in Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden was Yemeni by descent.
Saleh co-operated as the CIA stepped up a campaign of drone strikes against key Al Qaeda figures, which also led to scores of civilian deaths.
In 2011, Saleh survived a bomb attack on the mosque in his presidential compound that killed several of his senior aides and left him disfigured.
Yet while other leaders were toppled or killed after the regional uprisings that started in late 2010, Saleh seemed indestructible as he continued playing his enemies off each other and Yemen descended into tribal warfare and Islamist insurgency.
In 2012, after months of demonstrations against his regime, he finally agreed to step down, ceding the presidency to his deputy, Abdrabu Mansur Hadi. But during the televised resignation ceremony on February 27, he wore a cryptic smile, suggesting that in his own eyes, at least, Saleh was far from finished.
Having won immunity from prosecution in exchange for leaving office, former president Saleh ostensibly retired to his villa in Sanaa to live quietly and contemplate his legacy. In 2013, he opened a museum documenting his 33year rule.
One of the exhibits was the pair of burnt trousers he was wearing during the 2011 assassination attempt.
In reality, however, he was plotting a comeback. Ultimately, that vainglory led his country to another war and to almost total collapse.
Saleh was fond of likening Yemeni politics as “dancing on the heads of snakes”.
Yesterday, one of the snakes reared up and bit him.