Saleh’s death seems likely to inflame what has become a proxy war in Yemen between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Yemen’s former president Ali Abdullah Saleh has been killed by Houthi rebels near the capital, Sanaa.Sanaa’s Houthi-controlled Interior Ministry announced the veteran Yemeni leader’s death in a statement. “The militias of treason are finished and their leader has been killed,” the statement said.
Saleh’s body was brought back to the capital and has been handed over to the leadership of his party, the General People’s Congress.Two days earlier, Saleh announced he was breaking a three-year alliance with the Iranian-backed Houthis.
Saleh rose to power as part of a military coup, becoming president of North Yemen in 1978. After unification in 1990 he became president of all Yemen.
He officially stepped down as president in 2012, less than a year after protests swept through Yemen as part of the Arab Spring. He re-emerged as a major political player in recent years, joining forces with Houthi rebels in their fight against coalition forces led by Saudi Arabia, a former ally.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a coalition of Gulf states against Houthi rebels who ousted the pro-Saudi, internationally recognized government in Yemen in 2015.
The war in Yemen is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, according to the United Nations, killing at least 10,000 people and leading to widespread hunger and disease.
