Who Is Who: Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt 1981-2011

An Egyptian protestor tearing down a poster of President Hosni Mubarak during a protest in Alexandria, Egypt, 25 January 2011. EPA/BGNES

82-year-old Hosni Mubarak resigned as President of Egypt under popular pressure after 18 days of massive street protests.

Hosni Mubarak was the autocratic President of Egypt, the largest Arab nation, for almost 30 years - from October 1981 till February 2011. He is one of the world's longest serving Presidents.

Mubarak was brought down by a "social network revolution" as the April 6th Youth Movement used Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to start protests against the regime, which grew to attract massive popular support. The rigged Parliamentary Elections that Egypt held in December 2010 were one of the catalysts of the protests together with factors such as massive poverty and police brutality.

Beginning with the 2011 Egyptian protests on January 25, 2011 protesters called for his resignation as president of Egypt. On February 1, 2011, Mubarak announced that he would not seek another term in the 2011 Egyptian presidential election.

On February 11, 2011, Vice President Omar Suleiman announced that Mubarak had resigned as President of Egypt, transferring authority to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, following 18 days of protests challenging his thirty-year rule.

Hosni Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928 in Kahel-el-Meselha, a village in the Nile River Delta. The son of a ministry of justice bureaucrat, he was one of five children. He graduated from the National Military Academy in 1949, went on to the Air Force Academy as a fighter pilot and flight instructor, then commander of the Air Force Academy by 1967. His wife, Suzanne, is the daughter of an Egyptian doctor and a Welsh nurse. They have two sons, Gamal and Alaa.

After learning to fly MiG jet fighters in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, he became the air force chief of staff in 1969, then commander in chief of the air force and deputy war minister three years later. Mubarak distinguished himself in the 1973 October War against Israel, becoming air marshal in 1974. In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el Sadat appointed Mubarak vice president - a post Mubarak himself, as president, always refused to fill for fear of emboldening a successor.

Only after the massive protests against his rule erupted in late January 2011 did Mubarak appoint a Vice-President, Omar Suleiman, as a sort of a concession to the protesters.

Mubarak was sworn in as president of Egypt on Oct. 14, 1981, following the assassination of Sadat a week earlier by Islamists from the Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya group, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Mubarak declared emergency rule immediately after Sadat's assassination. It has been renewed regularly since. The decree allowed Mubarak to seize or censor all media outlets, Internet communication links.

Mubarak promised to end emergency rule while campaigning for his sixth presidential term in 2005 but did not keep the promise.

Mubarak's regime in Egypt has been characterized by the tightening and relaxing of controls on opposition movements, especially Islamists, by patronage and corruption and unfulfilled promises to tackle both, and by Mubarak's failure to alleviate the country's crushing poverty and inequality.

Like his predecessors, Mubarak carried out bloody crackdowns on Islamists, especially in the 1990s, when thousands died and were imprisoned following strings of terrorist attacks and assassinations, including attempts on Mubarak's life. Violence declined after 2000 and a pledge by Al Gamaa al-Islamiyya to lay down arms.

Following a push by the Bush administration in 2004 and 2005 to bring democracy to the Middle East, Mubarak promised a few reforms and more open elections. When candidates backed by the Muslim Brotherhood won 20% of parliamentary seats in 2005, Mubarak cracked down on the Brotherhood again.

The Arab League expelled Egypt following Sadat's separate peace with Israel in 1979, and relocated its headquarters to Tunis from Cairo. Quiely, steadily, Mubarak reestablished relations with Arab countries, beginning the Gulf's oil powers, and by 1989 won Egypt's return to the league. Cairo again became its headquarters.

Mubarak has been described as "America's best friend" in the Arab world following a close partnership with the USA after in 1979 his predecessor Anwar El Sadat signed the breakthrough Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty (following the 1978 Camp David Accords) with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and witnessed by United States President Jimmy Carter.

Internationally, Mubarak's regime in Egypt has been labeled a "corrupt dictatorship" hated by Middle Eastern Islamists for its secular character and backed by America and the West precisely because of that.

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