Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamdī

…career, he helped to bring Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamdī to power in a 1974 coup, but the assassination of Ḥamdī in 1977 and of his successor in the following year threw the country into turmoil. The result was Saleh’s elevation to the presidency by the People’s Constituent Assembly on July 17, 1978.…

Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamdī in 1974. Internal security is a major concern of the government. The Political Security Organization is the major intelligence organ of the state; police and paramilitary groups provide security, and the Criminal Investigation Department conducts criminal investigations.

…military-led Command Council headed by Ibrāhīm al-Ḥamdī, who appointed a cabinet largely composed of technocrats. That government slowly but surely began to build a set of more-modern institutions and to implement the beginnings of a program of development—at the local as well as the national level. Not all sectors of…