Following the end of the Aden Emergency and the achievement of South Yemeni independence in 1967, the National Liberation Front (NLF) was handed power over the country following negotiations in Geneva with the British government.

A broadly left-wing nationalist insurgent organization, the NLF had sought to unite the forces of the Aden petroleum and port workers' trade unions, Nasserites, and Communists.

His government helped establish Marxist paramilitary organizations around the Arabian Peninsula, PFLOAG and PFLO, which used political activism and violence to campaign against the Western-aligned Arab monarchies on the Persian Gulf.

Under Ismail, South Yemen gave its most direct support to the later of these two groups during the Dhofar Rebellion in neighbouring Oman, providing advisors to the insurgent forces there, in addition to ensuring the transit of Warsaw Pact and Chinese weapons to the rebels.

Following the failure of the insurgency in Oman in 1978 and simmering hostilities with North Yemen including the Yemenite War of 1979, Ismail had lost favour with conservative elements of the Yemeni Socialist Party and alienated his country from much of the region and the West.

The Soviet Union, upon which South Yemen relied for the vast majority of its trade and financial aid, had also lost confidence in the General Secretary, policymakers within the Brezhnev administration regarding him as a loose cannon and a liability.

[2][3] In June 1985, the YSP politburo adopted a resolution stating that anyone who resorted to violence in settling internal political disputes is considered a criminal and a betrayer of the homeland.

[1] A former Politburo member, al-Beidh took the top position in the YSP following a 12-day 1986 civil war between forces loyal to former chairman Abdul Fattah Ismail and then-chairman Ali Nasir Muhammad.

[6][7] Suffering a loss of more than half its aid from the Soviet Union from 1986 to 1989,[8] and an interest in possible oil reserves on the border between the countries, al-Beidh's government worked toward unification with North Yemen officials.