Ahmad al-Ghashmi in the context of "Ali Abdullah Saleh"

Ali Abdullah Saleh (21 March 1947 – 4 December 2017) was a Yemeni military officer and politician who served as the first president of the Republic of Yemen from the Yemeni unification in 1990 until his resignation in 2012, following the Yemeni revolution. Previously, he had served as the fifth and last President of the Yemen Arab Republic (North Yemen), from July 1978 to 22 May 1990, after the assassination of President Ahmad al-Ghashmi. al-Ghashmi had earlier appointed Saleh as military governor in Taiz.

Saleh developed deeper ties with Western powers, especially the United States, during the war on terror. Subsequently, evidence emerged that Islamic terrorism may have been used and encouraged by Ali Abdullah Saleh in order to win Western support and for disruptive politically motivated attacks. In 2011, in the wake of the Arab Spring, which spread across North Africa and the Middle East (including Yemen), Saleh's time in office became increasingly precarious, until he was eventually ousted as president in 2012. He was succeeded by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, who had been serving as vice president since 1994, and acting president since 2011.