33 Years of Betrayal: How Did “Afash” Hand Yemen to the Enemy and Plunder Its Wealth?
The traitor Ali Abdullah Saleh—“Afash”—was not merely a ruler who ascended to power in a moment of political vacuum. He was the product of a long-term regional and international project, carefully designed to select a pliant tool capable of destroying the inside from the seat of power and ensuring Yemen remained weak and fragmented under foreign domination.
From the moment he seized the levers of authority, he wove threads of subservience to Riyadh and Washington, then extended them covertly to Tel Aviv—becoming a filthy conduit between the enemies of the ummah and the land of faith and wisdom.
For more than three decades, he turned state institutions into personal fiefs and the people’s resources into spoils for his family, leaving the country mired in poverty and dependency—paving the way for the March 2015 aggression—before meeting the fate of every traitor: ignominious downfall and popular repudiation.
Family First… the State Last
Since taking the chair in 1978, the traitor Afash did not run the country as a state but as an organized gang dividing up influence, posts, and wealth. His governing creed—“dancing on the heads of snakes”—was a blend of political cunning and manipulation of tribal, sectarian, and regional loyalties to secure his survival, even at the price of shredding the social fabric and unity of ranks.
He ring-fenced himself with a tight circle of relatives: his fugitive son Ahmed led the Republican Guard, while his brothers and nephews infiltrated the most sensitive state organs—from National Security and Central Security to counterterrorism forces and financial resource management. State institutions became family fiefdoms with neither law to oversee them nor parliament to hold them to account; parliament and the judiciary were reduced to political décor conferring paper legitimacy on decisions drafted behind closed doors in the presidential compound and in the rooms of shady deals.
Plundering Wealth and Starving the People
Corruption under Afash was not incidental; it was a deliberate strategy to keep the people in permanent want, easy to control. Between 2000 and 2011 alone, more than $50 billion in oil and gas revenues vanished—according to official reports—into foreign accounts or was spent on bogus overseas “investments” to feed his international patronage networks.
He also wrecked every chance of national production by flooding the market with imports via trade lobbies tied to his family, while slapping taxes and restrictions on local industries until they collapsed—turning Yemen into a dependent consumer market.
In 1991, following Yemeni unification, the Public Authority for Land—under direct presidential orders—issued a “free title” grant of 4,354 labnah (a local area unit) of government land and buildings in Sana’a’s Al-Hasaba area to the General People’s Congress. Party leaders seized this vast tract, with some selling off their allocations and splitting the proceeds, while others have continued to collect rent and reap profits to this day.
Under this systemized looting, health, education, and services infrastructure crumbled; hundreds of thousands lost their jobs; and the family’s palaces expanded as their private jets touched down in Riyadh, London, and Geneva.
Afash in Service of the American-Zionist Project
Afash bound himself to the United States in a relationship of total subservience—especially after September 11, 2001—pitching himself to Washington as an “indispensable partner” in the so-called war on terror. He opened Yemen’s skies to U.S. drones, allowed the CIA to establish secret facilities, and fed it intelligence on his rivals to secure American backing for his rule.
As for the Zionist entity, the relationship was more covert but no less dangerous. Through intermediaries in the Horn of Africa, he facilitated the passage of Israeli ships through Bab al-Mandab, provided logistical conveniences, and enabled arms smuggling to groups loyal to him—in exchange for intelligence and technical support in surveillance and espionage.
Leaked documents later exposed undisclosed meetings between Mossad officers and officials in his regime—proof that Afash was not only betraying Yemen, but stabbing the entire ummah in the back.
Laying the Groundwork for the Aggression
When the September 21 Revolution ignited, Afash saw it as a direct threat to his family’s patronage web. He first tried to co-opt it, then turned to alliances with certain Gulf states, hoping they would help him bequeath power to his fugitive son Ahmed.
When the U.S.-Saudi aggression began in March 2015, he rushed to market himself as the “man of the moment” with the keys to the inside: supplying a target bank, coordinating intelligence, and enabling security penetrations inside Sana’a—making himself a principal partner in Yemeni bloodshed in the delusion that it would restore him to center stage.
The December Fitna… A Resounding Collapse
In December 2017, Afash gambled one last time: an internal coup against the Revolution, bankrolled by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. He moved his militias to sow chaos in the capital and other provinces and opened direct channels to the aggression’s operations room.
His plan quickly failed. He fell with a crash—politically and morally—meeting an end befitting a life steeped in treachery, dying while wagering on Gulf money and American support.
Yemen After His Demise… An Era of Sovereignty, Not Subservience
After Afash’s departure, his project tried to return with new faces and different names. But the popular consciousness forged by the September 21 Revolution became a bulwark against recycling agents. Today, Yemen is shaping its reality with its own hands, drawing an equation with no place for mercenaries, no immunity for traitors, and no future for those who sold land and honor for a paltry price.
From the dustbin of history where Afash was cast, his fate stands as a lesson to anyone tempted by the path of treachery: it begins with betraying the people and ends in isolation, disgrace, and oblivion.