North Yemen civil war
The North Yemen civil war (Arabic: ثورة 26 سبتمبر, romanized: Thawra 26 Sabtambar, lit. '26 September Revolution') was a civil war fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970 between partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic. The war began with a coup d'état carried out in 1962 by revolutionary republicans led by the army under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal. He dethroned the newly crowned King and Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. His government abolished slavery in Yemen.[14] The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border where he rallied popular support from northern Zaydi tribes to retake power, and the conflict escalated rapidly to a full-scale civil war.
This article is about the North Yemen civil war in 1962–1970. For other civil wars in Yemen, see Yemeni civil war.
On the royalist side, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel[4] supplied military aid, and Britain gave covert support. The republicans were supported by Egypt (then formally known as the United Arab Republic) and were supplied warplanes from the Soviet Union.[2]
Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were also involved. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops and weapons. Despite several military actions and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate by the mid-1960s.
Egypt's commitment to the war is considered to have been detrimental to its performance in the Six-Day War against Israel of June 1967. After that Nasser found it increasingly difficult to maintain his army's involvement and began to pull his forces out of Yemen. The surprising removal of Sallal on November 5 by Yemeni dissidents, supported by republican tribesmen, resulted in an internal shift of power in the capital, while the royalists approached it from the north.
The new republic government was headed by Abdul Rahman Iryani, Ahmed Noman and Mohamed Ali Uthman, all of whom shortly either resigned or fled the country. The capital was left under the control of Prime Minister Hassan al-Amri. The 1967 siege of Sana'a became the turning point of the war. The remaining republican Prime Minister succeeded in keeping control of Sana'a and by February 1968, the royalists lifted the siege.
Clashes continued in parallel with peace talks until 1970, when Saudi Arabia recognized the Republic,[15] and a ceasefire came into effect.[16]
Egyptian military historians refer to the war in Yemen as "their Vietnam".[3] Historian Michael Oren (former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S.) later wrote that Egypt's military adventure in Yemen was so disastrous that the United States' actions in the continuing Vietnam War could easily have been dubbed "America's Yemen".[17]
Aftermath[edit]
By 1971, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia had disengaged from Yemen.[3] South Yemen formed a connection with the Soviet Union.[98] In September 1971, Amri resigned after murdering a photographer in San'a, and more power was given to Iryani, the effective President. By then, the royalists were integrated into the new republic, except for al-Badr's family, and a consultative Council was established. Clashes along the border between the states rose, and in 1972 a small war broke.[97]
After the war, the tribes were better represented in the republican government. In 1969, sheikhs were brought into the National Assembly and in 1971 into the Consultative Council. Under Iryani, the sheikhs, particularly the ones who fought for the republicans and were close to the mediation attempt. By the end of the war there was a breach between the older and more liberal politicians and republican sheiks, and certain army sheiks and activists from South Yemen. In the summer of 1972, a border war broke and ended with a declaration from both North Yemen and South Yemen that they would reunite, but they did not.[99] There were complaints in North Yemen about foreign influence by Saudi Arabia.[97]
Peace attempts: Khamir, Jeddah, and Haradh conferences[edit]
Khamir[edit]
Noman spoke over Radio San'a, offering reconciliation and inviting "all tribes of all persuasions" to meet with him the following week at Khamir, 50 miles north of San'a, to achieve "the one thing which we all prize over anything else: peace for the nation." In order to convince al-Badr to come the conference, Noman announced that he personally would head the republican delegation at Khamir, and that Sallal would stay in San'a.[65] Al-Badr and his ranking chiefs did not attend the conference, but a handful of pro-royalist sheiks were present. The conference named a committee of five tribal and four religious leaders who were charged with seeking out the "beguiled brothers", al-Badr and his friends. Noman's effort, including a private promise to reach a withdrawal of Egyptian troops, was backed by Nasser. Radio Cairo hailed the Khamir conference as the "dawn of a new era." Sallal called the talks "a complete success", while al-Badr stated that "It is essential that the conflict which has devastated our beloved country be brought to an end by peaceful negotiations between the Yemeni people themselves."[119] However, by early June, when Noman said that Egypt's 50,000 troops would have to be replaced by a joint royalist-republican peace force, the Nasserites lost interest in the deal. After Noman flew to Cairo to protest directly to Nasser, Sallal threw seven civilian Cabinet ministers into jail. Noman resigned, saying "It is obvious that Sallal and his cronies are more interested in war than peace". Sallal soon named a new Cabinet to replace Noman's, with 13 military men and two civilians.[120]