For information on Egypt, Sudan and Palestine in the 1950s:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-4#post-8638530
For information on the formation of the UAR, Lebanon and Iran in the 1950s:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ternative-cold-war.280530/page-5#post-8715054
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South Arabian Disturbances: North Yemen and the Free Arabian Republic (Part 1 of 2)
Throughout the 1960s the entire Arabian Peninsula was engulfed in a number of crises which significantly threatened Western influence within the region and claimed the lives of thousands. The chronology of these events often overlapped, as did the political forces in place within Yemen, Dhofar, Muscat and Saudi Arabia. Far from being merely local affairs, the crises pulled in the involvement of other Arab states, of Iran and the superpowers. Within the crises also lay the seeds for the gradual distancing of relations between the Arab nationalist movement and the forces of Soviet Communism.
Most dramatic and costly in human terms was the North Yemen Civil War and the UAR's attendant intervention. Yemen was one of the most backward countries in the region, deprived of oil wealth and with an archaic governmental system. The primary force holding the various tribes together was the figure of the ruler, Imam Ahmad bin Yahya, known by the chieftains of the country as "Ahmad the Devil". Imam Ahmad had defeated a serious challenge to his authority in 1955, bribing the forces of mutinous Colonel Ahmad Thalaya until they were severely understrength, leading the charge against the remainder with scimitar in hand, clad in a demon mask. As he aged though, the Mutawakkilite monarch's greatest enemy was his own health. In 1959, he travelled to Rome for medical treatment. In his absence, skirmishes broke out between various tribes. Imam Ahmad's son, Muhammad al-Badr, attempted to buy off tribal leaders with promises of reform and greater representation. Upon Ahmad's return, the elderly Imam exacted vengeance on the dissident chieftains. In retribution, an assassination attempt on Imam Ahmad was unsuccessfully carried out. As a result of his close shave with death and his old age, the Imam became increasingly withdrawn from the affairs of state, leaving them in the hands of his son. The transfer of power was finalised in September 1962, when the feared Imam passed away.
One of the first acts of al-Badr's rule was the one that ultimately sealed his fate. Upon accession, he appointed Col. Abdullah Sallal, a socialist and Nasserist, as commander of the palace guard. He felt secure in doing so because the Mutawakkilite Kingdom had entered into a confederation with the UAR. Despite this alliance, Nasser had been seeking regime change in Yemen since at least 1957. In 1962 he even have radio airtime, financial support and office space to the Free Yemen Movement.
In the event, there were a number of separate plots in various levels of preparation. After Sallal's overthrow of the monarchy, most of the conspirators joined the republican cause, notably the Hashid tribal confederation, which had sworn vengeance on the royal family for the execution of their paramount sheikh at the hands of Imam Ahmad.
On September 25, the distinctive sound of tank tracks could be heard in Sana'a as sympathetic officers to Sallal secured a number of strategic positions throughout the capital and started shelling the palace. Sallal himself wasn't initially party to the coup, which was led by Lieutenant Ali Abdul al Moghay. Moghay sent for Sallal and convinced him to join the coup, encouraging him to take the mantle of first President of the Yemen Arab Republic. On September 29, Egyptian General Ali Abdul Hameed arrived to assess the situation and the needs of the Yemeni Revolutionary Command Council to consolidate control. With General Hameed arrived a battalion of
Saaqah (special forces), tasked with the job of ensuring the safety of Sallal. al-Badr had escaped disguised from the capital, arriving 15 days later at the Saudi border near Khobar where he took refuge under the patronage of the Saudi King Saud.
As a response to the instability on it's southwestern border, the Saudis redeployed troops to their border with Yemen. King Hussein of Jordan dispatched his Chief of Staff for discussions with al-Badr's uncle, the influential Prince Hassan. The newly-declared republic received diplomatic support from the United Arab Republic, the Republic of Italy, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the USSR. By contrast, the imamate was supported by the United Kingdom, the United States, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The Americans staged a number of shows of force in the skies over Saudi Arabia.
Whilst there was some fighting in 1962, the final part of that year was largely marked by the development of alliances between the alternative governments and the local tribes, as well as material preparations for the oncoming civil war. After significant diplomatic wrangling, the United States recognised the Yemen Arab Republic on December 19, 1963. A day later, the United Nations recognised the YAR. A week later, Sallal made a number of veiled threats to the Saudis, who held the disputed towns of Najran and Jizan. In early January 1963, the Egyptians bombed and strafed Najran. As a response, the United States sent a number of countermeasures to the town.
Whilst the West put diplomatic pressure on Nasser to withdraw his forces, he declared that the only circumstance under which his troops would be pulled out was if Saudi support to the royalists was halted. The United States hoped to convince the Saudis to cut their supply to al-Badr's forces in exchange for American guarantees of security. With this aim, Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker arrived in Riyadh with this offer, which was initially rejected by Crown Prince Faisal. Eventually, however, Faisal agreed, and Bunker met with Nasser in Beirut, where the President agreed that if the Saudis kept their word, he would withdraw his forces.
Meanwhile, the United Nations sought to create a peacekeeping force to ensure Saudi acquiescence with demands to stop supply. This force, the UN Yemen Observation Mission (UNYOM) was formed by Major-General Carl von Horn, a former commander of the UN mission in the Congo. UNYOM called for the establishment of a demilitarised zone 20km deep on either side of the Saudi-Yemen border and the stationing of observers within the zone to prevent Saudi supply of the rebels. On April 30, he was sent to determine what kind of resources were necessary to achieve the mission. A few days later he met UAR Vice President Abdel Hakim Amer in Cairo and found that, despite their reassurances, that the Egyptians had no intention of withdrawing from Yemen. By June, von Horn resigned, having failed his objectives. UNYOM only lasted itself until September 4, 1964, when the UN admitted failure and withdrew the peacekeeping mission.
The UN's concern had been increased by the large-scale Ramadan Offensive beginning on February 1963. In the lead-up to the offensive, Amer had successfully requested that Cairo double the 20,000-man expeditionary force in Yemen. By early February the first 5,000 of those reinforcements had arrived. On the 18th, 15 tanks, 20 armoured cars, 18 trucks and numerous jeeps moved from Sana'a north to Sadah, followed by garrison troops. Days later, another task force struck from Sadah southeast towards Marib. They maneuvered into the Rub al-Khali and were supplied by airlift. The UAR forces captured the city on the 25th. The same force took Harib on March 7. The only resistance they encountered was attack from a force of 1,500 royalists who had travelled from Najran, but who were unable to inflict damage on the hard targets and were easily brushed aside. The only relatively effective combat response from the royalists was at the Battle of El Argoup 25 miles to the southeast of Sana'a. 500 royalists commanded by Prince Abdullah attacked an Egyptian position on the summit of a sheer-sided hill, fortified with six Soviet-made T-54s, a dozen armoured cars and a number of machine gun emplacements. The royalists were armed with rifles, a single mortar with 20 rounds, and a bazooka with four rounds. The battle lasted a week and cost the Egyptians 3 tanks, 7 armoured cars and 160 dead. Nevertheless, their successful defence (despite losses) and their advances on other parts of the front allowed them to interdict royalist movement of supplies in the mountains north and east of Sana'a. In April the royalists held a conference with Faisal in Riyadh, where it was decided that camel caravans would be used instead of trucks to move supplies. More effective smuggling of materiel allowed the royalists to start bouncing back from the Ramadan Campaign.
The royalists had relatively little time to lick their wounds. Another Egyptian campaign was mounted on June 12, known as the 'Haradh Offensive'. In this offensive, 4,000 Egyptian infantry, supported by units of the Yemeni army and mercenaries recruited in Aden attacked royalist-held Beit Adaqah, 30 miles west of Sana'a. The attacking force advanced 12 miles in two days, before being repelled by a royalist counterattack. The UAR forces then attacked Sudah, using the unpopularity of the local royalist commander to bribe local sheikhs, thus allowing the republican forces to take the town unopposed. Few incidents better illustrate the fickleness of political accomodations in the North Yemen Civil War than the episode a month later, where the same sheikhs sent apologies to al-Badr and requested guns and money with which to fight the Egyptians. al-Badr agreed, putting the surrounds of Sudah under nominal royalist control. However, the sheikhs refused to engage in combat with the republican garrison, leaving Sudah under republican control for the duration of the fighting.
The substantive part of the Haradh Campaign came on August 15, when 1,000 UAR troops, supported by twice as many Yemeni troops, launched an offensive from the major northwestern base in Haradh to cut the 30-mile track south through the mountains from the Saudi border at Khoubah to al-Badr's headquarters in the Qara mountains near Washa. According to the plans, the force would then split in two, with one thrust through Washa, the other branch travelling northeast along the track to seal the Saudi border below the Razih mountains. The main column of troops moved along the Haradh and Tashar ravines. As the republican forces travelled through the ravines, the royalists attempted to take advantage of their lack of maneuverability by directing simultaneous counterattacks into each valley, with al-Badr taking personal command of the Tashar ravine forces, whilst Prince Abdullah Hussein attacked into the Haradh ravine. The Egyptian forces managed to bleed the royalists for their rather limited advance, and were assisted by the arrival of tribal forces and Egyptian reinforcements which had been driving from Sadah southwest below the Razih mountains to link up with the Haradh force. Further, the republican forces were assisted by their airpower, with Egyptian airplanes engaging in strafing runs on armed trucks which had come to bolster the royalist attacks. The arrival of the Egyptian reinforcements allowed the republicans to seal the Haradh ravine and destroy the royalist attack in that sector, capturing Prince Hussein. Meanwhile, the royalist forces in the Tashar ravine withdrew upon receiving communications from their comrades in the neighbouring ravine[116].
The aftermath of the Haradh Campaign saw the breakdown of negotiations at the Alexandria Summit of September 1964. The Egyptians resumed their bombing of royalist positions in November, violating a ceasefire agreement that had been adopted in October. But the final death knell to the royalist cause was the overthrow of Faisal, who had become king after his father's death in November 1964. The impact of the drying-up of Saudi support was immediately apparent. December 1964 saw an Egyptian drive into the Razih Mountains, where they spent the next three months flushing out royalist tribesmen in the region. A number of small-scale abortive attempts to cut Egyptian supply lines make it painfully obvious that the royalists were running low on key supplies, particularly ammunition. The Nahm tribe of the Wadi Humaidat were particularly useful in providing local knowledge on the area[117]. The Egyptians followed these successes up with a drive towards Najran and Jizan to seize the towns and return them to Yemeni administration.
By this point the UAR's activities in Yemen were eclipsed by the developing Arabian crisis. Encouraged by Nasser, the Free Princes and sympathetic army officers seized Saudi army bases, airfields and the capital Riyadh. Shockwaves rippled through the region and as far as Washington D.C., where panic spread about the overthrow of their most close-knit ally in the Middle East and the threat the new regime posed to American oil imports. The powers within the region scrambled. Concerned at their ability to provide security for the region, the British provided independence to the Trucial Emirates, of which Bahrain and Qatar opted for complete independence, whilst the remaining emirates formed a confederation known as the United Arab Emirates. Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE formed a collective security agreement with Iran, known as the Gulf Cooperative Security Community (GCSC). Bahrain abstained from joining due to concerns over Iran's claim of the country as their rightful territory. Whilst the Americans began to mobilise forces to intervene, Iranian troops landed on Bahrain, occupying the island nation under the pretext of protecting it from potential overthrow by unspecified Nasserist elements. This created an uproar with the Sunni Arab states of the Gulf, who criticised the Iranian action as a blatant land grab. This internal conflict in the Gulf created uncertainty in the United States itself as to where land forces should be based, as well as whether or not the United States should criticise Iran's occupation of Bahrain. By late December 1954, when a decision was made that an American force based in Kuwait would move into the country overland whilst supporting an Iranian amphibious invasion at Dammam, the Free Princes had full control of the situation within the country. The leader of the movement, Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud, had declared the Free Arabian Republic (FAR) and had become the country's first President.
Whilst the Soviet Union initially opposed Nasser's meddling in Saudi Arabia as a potential provocation to 'reactionary' forces. Nevertheless, when American ships turned up in the Gulf, the Soviet leadership saw it necessary to respond to US military aggression. Paratroopers and GRU operatives were sent to Riyadh, Tabouk and around (but not in) Mecca as a defensive measure. These forces were placed around key places in order to ensure the continued operation of the Free Arabian government. As American tanks rolled into the Al'Ahsa and Iranian infantry stormed Dammam, Khrushchev announced that "any attack on or attempt to disarm Soviet forces will be considered an act of war and be met with massive retaliation". Hawks within the American camp pointed out the absurdity of the invasion if American forces cannot seize the key infrastructure occupied by Soviet forces. They suggested that the United States should call the Russian bluff and disarm Soviet troops in Arabia and engage them if they resist violently. By contrast, the doves suggested that American forces should withdraw from the country, engage the new Arabian regime and the UAR diplomatically, and strengthen the GCSC and other pro-Western forces in the region.
[116] IOTL, the Egyptian forces got stuck due to heavy rain turning the ground into mud. They therefore experienced much greater losses ITTL, and they didn't capture Prince Hussein in OTL.
[117] IOTL the Nahm tribe backstabbed the Egyptians and attacked their supply lines. ITTL, with the collapse of the Saudi royal regime and the resultant swing in the balance of power, the Nahm don't dare.
got my laptop replaced and some research materials together. Back in it!