Ali Said Abdella (September 1949 – August 28, 2005) was an Eritrean rebel commander, politician and diplomat, who at the time of his death was serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Eritrea.
He received medical and military training in Syria in 1965, after which he was known to lead a commando operation for hijacking and consequently burning the Ethiopian aeroplane in Karachi, Pakistan in 1969.
By the 1970s he had switched to Eritrea's other rebel group, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front[1] and, in 1977, he became a member of the politburo of that organization.
[2] When Eritrea gained independence in the early 1990s, first from 1990-93 before Eritrean referendum was conducted, Ali Said served as a chief of military operations.
There have been numerous speculation that top government officials including the President killed Ali due to secret talks he had about creating an uprising in Asmara and for it to spread across the country.