Yemen's 1978 al-Hamdi Coup: The Colonel Who Almost Modernized Yemen

Before the endless war, before Saleh's three-decade grip, there was Ibrahim al-Hamdi — a military commander who seized power in 1978 promising to break Yemen's old tribal and religious chains. In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore al-Hamdi's brief but transformative rule: how he built a modern army, challenged the Hashid and Bakil confederations, sidelined the Zaydi sayyids, and invested in roads and schools that reached even the remotest villages. They discuss his mysterious assassination just as he was consolidating power, the conflicting accounts of who killed him (his own brother? Saudi agents? the Muslim Brotherhood?), and why his death is still mourned by many Yemenis as a lost chance for a unified, progressive state. The conversation also touches on the role of the General People's Congress, the 1972 and 1979 border wars with North Yemen, and how al-Hamdi's legacy was deliberately buried by his successor Ali Abdullah Saleh. This is a story of a road not taken — and a ghost that still haunts Yemeni politics.

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