Rashad al-Alimi

Rashad al-Alimi was born in 1954 in Al-Aloom, a village in the Taiz Governorate,[1] and is the son of judge Mohammed ben Ali al-Alimi. He graduated from Gamal Abdel Nasser College in Sanaa in 1969.[2] He subsequently obtained a bachelor's degree in military science from the Kuwait Police College in 1975, and another university degree in arts from the University of Sanaa in 1977, then a master's degree and a doctorate in sociology from Ain Shams University in Egypt between 1984 and 1988.[3]

A member of the General People's Congress, he was Minister of the Interior from 4 April 2001 to 2008.[2][4] He then became Chairman of the Supreme Security Committee and Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Defense and Security Affairs in May 2008, subsequently becoming a member of the Yemeni National Dialogue Conference, then adviser to President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in 2014.[3]

On 3 June 2011, during the Battle of Sanaa, al-Alimi was wounded along with Ali Abdullah Saleh during an attack on the Al-Nahdin Mosque in the Presidential Palace.[5] He was subsequently transferred to Saudi Arabia and to Germany for treatment, before returning to Sanaa on June 13, 2012. He left the city again as a result of the Houthi takeover in Yemen[1] and began living in Saudi Arabia in 2015.[6] Al-Alimi became Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council, a body given the powers of the President of Yemen, on 7 April 2022.[7]