Monday 18 June 2007

The Aden Conflict In Brief

During the early 1960s the Cold War reached its climax. Britain’s dwindling power in the Middle East was under siege from Arab nationalism, the Communist Bloc and from American designs in the region.

Aden, with its strategic military base and old Protectorate buffer zone, was soon the main battleground. The 1962 Egyptian-inspired coup in the neighbouring Kingdom of Yemen further tightened the noose.

So began a bitter and bloody insurgency war in South Arabia. British regular and Special Forces were soon pitted against growing and formidable terrorist forces, fighting both as war in the mountains and an urban conflict in the backstreets of Aden town. Intelligence agencies vied for control of ‘hearts and minds’.

The situation then spiraled out of control in Aden, reaching bloody denouncement in June 1967. In November 1967, the British Forces finally withdrew from South Arabia.

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