Ahmad Yahya al-Thulaya

Ahmad Yahya al-Thulaya (; 1916 - April 13, 1955) was a Yemeni colonel who led the failed 1955 coup against Imam Ahmad bin Yahya, the absolute monarch of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen.

Early life and career

Al-Thulaya was born in 1916 in Sanaa. He attended the Dar Al-Aytam school for orphans in Sanaa (future Yemeni prime minister Abdullah al-Sallal was also a student), and later joined the army. He participated in a Yemeni military delegation to Iraq in 1936, where he met many prominent Iraqi officers, including Khalil Dabbagh. After his return to Yemen, he rose through the ranks, becoming the head of a military detachment in the city of Saada, where he remained until the 1948 Al-Waziri coup that sought to overthrow the monarchy.

Although the uprising succeeded in killing the Imam, Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din, it failed to prevent his son, Ahmad bin Yahya, from taking power as Imam. Al-Thulaya had supported the uprising, and afterwards he traveled to Hajjah to seek a pardon from the new imam. He received a pardon, but was made to stay in Hajjah in a state of quasi-detainment.

He was released in 1950, and was posted to As-Salif, a port north of Al Hudaydah, but removed from this post in 1953 by the imam. He was then appointed as an army instructor in Taiz, then the Yemeni capital.

Al-Thulaya attempted to flee to Aden, which was under British control, but was captured by tribesmen loyal to the Imam and returned to Taiz, where he was publicly executed along with some of his fellow coup plotters.