The Dhofar war is often considered to be a model campaign,1 although it has received relatively little scholarly attention and has certainly not had the same kind of influence upon the study and practice of counterinsurgency as the campaign in Malaya, which is odd considering that the environment in which the campaigns of the first decade of the twenty-first century were fought mirrors that of Oman rather more than the jungles of southeast Asia. This chapter seeks to explore not only the peaks and troughs of the counterinsurgency campaign in Oman, with particular focus on the fighting in the southern province of Dhofar, but aims to contextualize this process within the history of Oman and Anglo-Omani relations and the process of statebuilding, which was occurring in parallel with the counterinsurgency campaign itself. Having said this, while this context is essential, the chapter seeks to focus more on the military side of the war and those elements that were more directly associated with the conduct of the campaign. The chapter begins by briefly exploring the previous counterinsurgency campaign fought in Oman, the Jebel Akhdar war of the 1950s as this not only provides important context but also because many of the decisions taken in the aftermath of this conflict are important for understanding the approach taken in Dhofar in later years. The obsessive focus on preventing a recurrence of the unrest in the north of Oman also meant that little attention was paid to the developing situation in the south of the country.
At this juncture, a brief overview of the literature examining the Dhofar war is of importance, both to frame the structure of this chapter and to offer readers an understanding of the strengths, weaknesses, and approaches of the existing historiography of the war.
Perhaps the dominant aspect of the literature on the campaign is the burgeoning, at least when compared to other literature on Oman in general or the Dhofar war in particular, assortment of memoirs focused around the Dhofar war. The most famous is undoubtedly Sir Rannulph Fiennes’s Where Soldiers Fear to Tread,2 but other works include John Akehurst’s We Won a War: The Campaign in Oman 1965–75,3 David Arkless’s The Secret War: Dhofar 1971–72,4 Peter Thwaites’s Muscat Command,5 Ian Gardiner’s more recent In the Service of the Sultan,6 Andrew Higgins’s entertaining and insightful With the SAS and Other Animals: A Vet’s Experiences during the Dhofar War 1974,7 and Bryan Ray’s Dangerous Frontiers: Campaigning in Somaliland and Oman.8 In addition, the autobiographies of John Akehurst’s Generally Speaking9 and Ken Perkins’s A Fortunate Soldier10 also provide useful material. There is also a subcategory within the ever-flourishing field of “SAS studies” comprising memoirs that deal explicitly with the Dhofar war such as Tony Jeapes’s SAS Operation Oman11 and Peter de la Billière’s Looking for Trouble,12 in addition to a seemingly endless array of chapters both in other memoirs, for example, Paul Sibley’s A Monk in the SAS,13 and those in more general books on the SAS such as Anthony Kemp’s The SAS Savage Wars of Peace14 and Peter Ratcliffe’s Eye of the Storm.15 While all of these books are useful, the latter tend to have only small sections on Dhofar and the former, since they are memoirs, need to be treated with the usual element of caution. In addition to this is the fact that they are often focused on specific limited tours, lack context and detailed knowledge of wider events and processes, and are often written in a style designed to attract mass-market readership. Despite these shortcomings, the focus of these books is, of course, very much upon military operations and they provide a fascinating and often vivid picture of the nature of the conflict and the nature, extent, and utility of (in particular) of the British participation on the ground. In this sense then, these memoirs are a useful jumping-off point for the study of the Dhofar campaign but are at their best when complemented by more academic work that investigates individual elements of the campaign and particular periods in more depth and that which offers an overview of the whole war.
Until recently, there has been no literature detailing the whole of the counterinsurgency campaign in Dhofar,16 although the campaign still apparently forms part of the curriculum at the staff college at Shrivenham.17 The publication of J. E. Peterson’s hefty volume, Oman’s Insurgencies: The Sultanate’s Struggle for Supremacy,18 in 2007 has gone a very long way toward filling that gap. This book examines both the Imamate Rebellion of the 1950s and the Dhofar war of the 1960s and 1970s and gives an almost blow-by-blow account of events. The book is usefully militarily focused but suffers from a lack of referencing should one wish to find out more. Despite this, as the official Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF) historian, and a recognized authority on Oman, Peterson would have had access to some interesting primary source material and this makes the book likely to be the most definitive account.19
In addition to Peterson’s work, which forms the basis of the historical record of events during the Dhofar war, there have also been a number of other publications focused on the campaign itself (as opposed to the wider political, diplomatic, and developmental elements), four of which stand out. First, the classic work of Fred Halliday’s Arabia without Sultans must be mentioned here as there are several key chapters that deal with the insurgency and the situation in Oman. While dated and taking a Marxist line, Halliday spent time with the rebels, and despite the overt sympathy with the insurgents and their cause, the work does paint a vivid picture and is very useful in giving us an insight into rebel motivations and structures.20 In more recent years, there have been some good journal articles reassessing the campaign in the light of archival releases and because of the post-2003 focus on the study of counterinsurgency.21 Perhaps the most provocative of these is Marc DeVore’s A More Complex and Conventional Victory: Revisiting the Dhofar Counterinsurgency, 1963–1975, which argues against large currents of the literature that “lessons learned in previous counterinsurgencies (Malaya, Kenya, and Borneo) proved of only limited value in Oman’s physical and cultural environment.” He also posits that “only Iran’s direct military intervention and the dramatic growth of Oman’s financial resources after the 1973 oil crisis provided the resources to conduct large-scale offensive operations.”22 This suggestion has a certain element of truth to it but goes against the interpretations of others who had to serve alongside the Iranians and were more than a little skeptical of their fighting abilities and what they had to offer the conflict.23
One of the most important things to understand about the Dhofar war is that it was British-led, rather than British-fought and it developed over its course to become a joint Anglo-Omani enterprise, which drew in contributions of various kinds from countries as diverse as Iran, Jordan, and India. The complexity of the international side of the campaign, when added to both the importance of its context and its extended duration, makes it extremely difficult to disentangle and present the campaign clearly in any format below full book length without losing vital themes, linkages, and nuance. Indeed, the British themselves back in Whitehall both at the MoD (Ministry of Defense) and FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) had trouble understanding quite where they had come from and where they were going with the campaign and sought, both during the campaign and in the aftermath of the war’s end in the late 1970s, to bring together their information to form a clear chronology of the war.24 This chronology, pieced together as it was after the war and grouped the conflict in distinct phases or periods, forms the basis of this chapter both in terms of its structure and for much of the core content. Because the chapter seeks to offer an overview of the development of the counterinsurgency (but naturally, and by necessity, of the insurgency as well), it makes more sense to do this chronologically rather than thematically. This allows the reader to better understand the sweep and development of the war rather than viewing it through a more compartmentalized structure. This approach, though, naturally inclines toward narrative and description and away from analysis. Thus, to address this issue, the chapter seeks to offer more explicit sections of analysis at the end of its description of the main events in each phase of the campaign and supplements the outline offered by the “official” chronology by drawing upon other sources and in particular upon the only comprehensive outline of the development of the campaign published thus far, that offered in the second half of J. E. Peterson’s volume Oman’s Insurgencies. Clearly, the approach taken here is not entirely satisfactory given the nature and complexity of the subject but is designed to overcome the limitations present to achieve its core goal of providing an overview of the development of the campaign over its fullest duration.
One should also acknowledge at this point that even the duration of the war is at times unclear with various authors assigning the campaign varying lengths. This chapter goes beyond the years in its title somewhat because this is important to a full understanding of the campaign but also chooses specific years both to act as a framing device and to demonstrate with some clarity the sheer length of the campaign. Since His Majesty Sultan Qaboos declared the campaign to be over at the end of 1975, this is often taken as the final year of the war; however, as the Special Air Service (SAS)—such key actors and symbols of the gravity of the situation, as well as of the British commitment to the war—was not removed until toward the end of 1976, this too may serve as a useful point at which to draw a line and declare the war to be over but this too would perhaps be misleading—as may be the withdrawal of the Royal Air Force (RAF) from its bases at Salalah and Masirah in 1977. Yet there was still ongoing fighting in the west of Dhofar in 1978, and sporadic ambushes and contacts were still occurring as late as 1980, although clearly the situation had been utterly transformed by that time. Although it is always difficult to pin down the exact start and end of an insurgency, this chapter has taken the years 1962–1975 for two principle reasons. First, the earlier date allows us insight into the earliest activities of the insurgency and enables us to follow its evolution in its early years when with good policy and intelligence it could have been nipped in the bud; and, second, the chapter chooses to largely end in 1975 because of the significant change in the nature of the campaign toward the middle of that year and because both British and Sultanate authorities (who were both rather shocked at the sudden deterioration in the strength of the insurgents over the course of 1975) were willing to publicly declare victory.
The intellectual problem with the study of all insurgencies is mired in the difficulty of deciding on when and where to begin and end the study without damaging the findings, but in the spirit of compromise needed to achieve clarity, the chapter begins with a brief examination of the Anglo-Omani relationship, which was so crucial to the conduct and successful outcome of this counterinsurgency campaign, and it follows this up with a précis of the history of the previous counterinsurgency campaign in the north of Oman during the 1950s. Then, taking the “official” chronology of the war as its guide, the chapter unfolds through the examination not of individual years of the campaign but through an examination of the distinct phases of the war identified in the chronology. The chapter then ends with a brief examination of some of the wider processes ongoing in terms of statebuilding and development before drawing some conclusions.
The formal relationship between the two countries can be traced back through the East India Company to 1646, although it is more commonly associated with the 1798 Treaty of Friendship.25 As Britain rose as an Indian Ocean power, it was naturally forced to interact with the Omanis as an important and powerful state in the region in its own right, as well as competing with the French and the Dutch. An alliance of convenience was duly formed, which grew more one sided as Oman declined in power and became separated into Arabian Oman and East African Oman, centered on Zanzibar.26 Over the years, relations developed on a twin track of necessity for both sides and a form of friendship and mutual admiration. This Anglo-Omani thread is important for understanding the role that Britain played in Oman in the second half of the twentieth century for while discourses of power, colonialism, and necessity are valid there is still a different element here beyond just need: it is the bonds that have grown up between the two nations and their citizens, bonds that played a real role in the successful partnership that was further developed over the course of the Dhofar war that form an unmeasurable, yet tangible, element in understanding why this counterinsurgency effort prevailed in 1975.27
The Imamate Rebellion, which lasted from 1954 to 1959, was rooted in tensions over the extent to which the Sultan’s writ ran over the interior. Britain had brokered a truce and a treaty in 1920 at Seeb, which appeared to govern relations but which in reality solved little. With the election of a new Imam in the interior, tensions soon grew and eventually resulted in a fairly extensive insurgency. This was initially contained but grew much worse after 1957, supported as it was by the Saudis and cleverly taking advantage of Arab Nationalist trends to garner support from Egypt and Iraq. The situation eventually necessitated considerable direct British intervention with armored cars, the SAS, the Trucial Oman Scouts from (what was to become in 1971) the neighboring United Arab Emirates (UAE), and a detachment of the Cameronians, along with RAF air support.28 This counterinsurgency campaign displayed few of the hallmarks of the later campaign in Dhofar and relied considerably more on coercion to enforce compliance with the Sultan Sai’d’s regime. Its success in 1959 came through a daring mission in the Jebel Akhdar to flush the remaining rebels out of their mountain stronghold. It resulted in the leaders of the rebellion fleeing into exile in Saudi Arabia and necessitated a continuing strong SAF presence to dissuade any repeat occurrences. In this sense then, while undoubtedly successful, the Imamate Rebellion, or the Jebel Akhdar war, had the positive outcome of encouraging the British to fund and assist the Sultan in developing his armed forces and beginning to bring civilian development projects into the country, which left it better prepared to deal with the Dhofar rebellion than it otherwise would have been—yet had the rather more negative consequence of encouraging the Sultan to believe that harsh measures worked effectively and in focusing attention on the north of the country at the expense of the south.29
Having briefly examined the scene in Oman in terms of both the wider sweep of Anglo-Omani relations and the Imamate Rebellion, it is also crucial to speak of the specific threefold context against which the Dhofar war took place. The three key themes here are, of course, the Cold War competition both globally and regionally, the spread of radical and Arab nationalist ideologies throughout the Middle East, and the competition between regimes controlled by these ideologies—principally Egypt, Iraq, and Syria—and finally Britain’s historical role in the region and eventual decision to withdraw from the Gulf States by the end of 1971. The Cold War competition meant that rebellions had a source of external resources and support principally from Cuba, East Germany, China, and the Soviet Union. The importance of the Gulf and Oman, strategically and especially for its oil resources, made the region globally pivotal. In addition, Britain’s imperial decline throughout the 1960s and 1970s left the Gulf as its last really significant independent area of interest and major military presence, in large part because of the demands of NATO and the need to secure Europe against the Soviet threat.
It is this wider context that is crucial for understanding why the insurgency took root and why (despite the odds) Britain was able to lead the way in defeating it.30
The insurgency began in a very unobtrusive manner and is invariably put down to the crosscurrents of Arab nationalism and socialism as well as the doctrines on national liberation and self-determination, which were sweeping through the Middle East. Dhofar had traditionally been a fairly remote and traditional place and was ethnically and culturally somewhat distinct from the rest of Arabia, let alone Oman despite hundreds of years of Arab and Islamic influence.31 This is crucial for understanding the specific grievances and aspirations of the Dhofaris. When examining the earliest years of the conflict, when rebel numbers were low and attacks were sporadic and relatively ineffective—despite the fact that external assistance was being received from an early stage—the obvious site of analysis is whether the conflict could have been nipped in the bud at this early stage, thus saving the later much greater investment in time, expense, and loss of life.
While somewhat counterfactual, it is hard to see, given the situation pertaining at that time, how it could have been prevented. Not only was British and Omani attention elsewhere, this was not an insurgency that could have been as easily foreseen as it appears with hindsight. It developed very slowly, almost imperceptibly one might say, and given the constraints (both fiscal and political), it is hard to see how change could have been mobilized sufficiently to have had enough of an effect. If all progress was slow in Oman during this period, then the growth of the insurgency mirrored that sloth. Oman was facing the headwinds of change in the region and was ill-equipped at that stage to deal with them.
It is difficult even today to really pin down the roots of the insurgency in Dhofar, although it is perhaps best associated with the emigration for work from the 1940s onward in the oil-rich Gulf states of Dhofaris who not only were exposed to radical socialist and nationalist ideologies but also saw for the first time how differently others in the region lived and how quickly the world was changing and developing. This naturally made them compare their situation at home with those of their new employers. As part of the process of expatriates sticking together, clubs and associations were formed. Peterson identifies six strands of opposition group that had formed by the early 1960s—the Arab Nationalist Movement, the Dhofar Benevolent Society/Dhofar Charitable Association, the Dhofar Soldier’s Organization, the Party of the Advance, the Black Palm, and the Bait Kathir tribe.32 Others, to use the modern phrase, “self-radicalized” and were later drawn into the insurgency. The linkages made in these groups with other radicals across the Middle East and particularly in Yemen were to be of greater significance after 1967. It is interesting also to note that many Dhofaris worked in what is today termed the security sector within the other Gulf states and thus gained real experience and skills in the military arts; this perhaps made them rather more of a threat than they would otherwise have been.
It appears likely that the rebellion began in a small way with the grievances of the Bait Kathir Sheikh Musallim bin Nufal who had been part of the small unit separate to the SAF stationed in the south—the Dhofar force but who had fallen out with the former slaves who made up the majority of the unit. As a bedu who had perceived his pride slighted, this led to a period of absence without leave, which soon spiraled out of control and eventually led to elements of the tribe attempting to take revenge for all that had occurred.33 One can see at this point why perhaps the insurgency, such as it was during this period, was so easily overlooked. The first significant attack, which is widely acknowledged to have occurred, not counting some instances of sabotage, did not occur until April 1963 when Musallim and members of his family attacked a lorry from the John Mecom Oil Company. Perhaps the target is symbolic in that people feared their resources would be stolen from them or wanted to attract attention to grievances. Things moved forward from this point, and after a visit to Saudi Arabia, which appeared to have resulted in arms being donated, attacks of a similar nature, but often involving land mines, began to occur on a fairly frequent basis: nothing too dramatic, the classic guerrilla tactics of ambush, strafing, and planting land mines. Over the course of 1964, the attacks grew both bolder and more frequent, and more people were drawn to the rebels’ cause from both within and outside Dhofar. Things were becoming sufficiently bad in Dhofar for units of the SAF to begin to make brief tours to the province and for there to be plans laid to bring troops down from the north for both specific missions and for more extended tours.34
There were also lulls between attacks, some extended, as key leaders of the rebels moved in and out of Dhofar. Clearly much work was going on to build up the number of rebels and to secure sources of support. By 1965 the rebellion was being taken rather more seriously, and there were plans to hold Operation Rainbow in May, which involved large elements of the Muscat Regiment along with air support. Counterinsurgency during this period involved the classic tactics of cordon-and-search operations. One indication of the scale of the likely problem also came in May 1965 when, as Peterson reported, Iranian intelligence intercepted a dhow full of Dhofaris heading for Oman who had been trained in Iraq. “Naively,” he said, “everyone in the group carried photos of themselves with weapons and there were lists of sympathizers in Dhofar on the dhow.”35 This led to around 30 of those on the list being arrested and the first breakthrough against the rebels being made. It seemed as if the Omani government was finally making some progress at the end of this first phase of the conflict.
The “official” chronology at this point goes as far as identifying, but not really analyzing, a number of factors that were considered to be significant in either enabling the insurgency or preventing the government from dealing with the problem as it grew. The following is an analysis of some of the factors raised in the chronology.
This is perhaps an important point given that all political power was vested in one place. However, given the struggle that Sultan Sa’id bin Taimour had been through to secure and unify his domains, his success in rebalancing Oman’s finances, his independent mind, suspicions of Britain’s reliability and motivations, as well as his success in using force to crush the Imamate rebellion, it never seemed likely that Taimour would seek to accommodate the rebels in the south; view them as an equally valid threat as the Imamate rebels; or would be willing to waste resources and return to debt to fund development or, in his eyes, unnecessary armed forces expansion.
This was always somewhat unlikely, since a significant early source of funds was diasporic and Oman’s borders were far from secure. Coupled with the desire of communist and Arab nationalist regimes to spread their ideology and attempt to destabilize other states, this was always unlikely to be achievable. Perhaps there was more that Britain could have done in South Yemen while it was in control, but given that it could not prevent external aid flowing to rebel groups fighting against British rule there, this was never realistically achievable.
This was either hostile (Saudi Arabia had supported the earlier Imamate rebels) or disengaged: the rebellion was too small to cause alarm and other neighbors were either under British tutelage in terms of security and foreign affairs or were paying attention to other matters closer to home. It is difficult to see how British or Omani efforts could have had any real impact at this early stage in either mobilizing assistance for Oman or in dissuading hostile neighboring states from supporting the rebels.
This is an important point—not only were forces small in number, they were also undergoing slow modernization and a degree of reorganization as a result of British investment in the SAF in the aftermath of the Imamate rebellion. This meant that the main body of the armed forces was in the north leaving less well-organized units in the south with no combat experience from the Imamate war.
There were a number of limitations here, first having already effectively been forced to fight and win the Sultan’s war against the Imamate for him. Britain was understandably reluctant to be sucked in again. There was therefore little political appetite for the deployment of British troops, especially after the election of the Labor government under Harold Wilson. Britain was also faced with a number of other significant foreign policy issues in the region, which demanded more attention, and, finally, because Oman was a sovereign nation and Sultan Sai’d was not always amenable to receiving advice—however well intentioned—there were real constraints on what Britain could have done to force him to adopt a “hearts and minds” approach or even to realize that a significant problem may have been developing in the south of the country.
This was crucial—the quality of the intelligence infrastructure in the south, in particular, was especially poor. Thus, without good quality and sufficient information, there was inadequate awareness of the threat, its nature and its potential to suitably raise alarm bells for any of the other earlier factors to have been addressed politically.
When one adds the further factor of the overwhelming concentration on the north of the country and the desire to prevent a recurrence of the Imamate rebellion, it becomes even clearer why the threat in the south received little real attention from either Britain or the Sultanate authorities. One might say that this is a classic case of thinking that the next war was likely to come from the same direction as the last, but there were good reasons why the threat of a reignition of the Imamate rebellion was not some illusory threat. First, the rebellion’s main leaders were in exile in neighboring Saudi Arabia, which, still smoldering from its ejection from the Buraimi oasis in 1955, had put relations with Britain into the deep freeze and had armed and funded the previous insurgency. Second, the Iraqis were making moves across the Gulf to destabilize regimes and support Arab nationalist causes (not to mention that Nasser was attempting to do the same). Third, the rebellion had ended only in 1959 and a good deal of force had been used, including bombing and destroying villages, which did little to reduce grievances against the state held by certain tribes in the interior regions. Finally, the issue of the political status of the interior of the north of Oman was still generating real political heat, the rebels had become skilled users of propaganda, and the issue had lodged itself firmly at the United Nations.
Thus, given all of this, perhaps the answer to the question “Could the rebellion have been nipped in the bud during this early phase?” is, of course, “yes,” but ultimately this probably does not matter. First, because clearly there were too many political, financial, and practical impediments to this occurring, and, second, and more important, because events later in the conflict after 1967 meant that even had the early rebellion been defeated through force of arms, it is extremely likely that it would have been reignited (or a new rebellion begun) at a later stage anyway given the nature of the Cold War context and the spread of Marxist sentiments.
This second period marked the further development of the insurgency as it began to build and transform into a more significant threat. The date chosen to mark the beginning of this period is symbolic in that it represents the point at which a permanent SAF presence in Dhofar began. Clearly the threat posed by the insurgency had been belatedly recognized, although the level of the commitment to the region by the SAF was still rather modest. In effect, much of this period can be characterized by the metaphor of a pair of scales. As each side attempted to escalate and to ramp up its efforts, the other side was able to respond fairly readily. The end of this period coincides with the early British withdrawal from its responsibilities in neighboring South Arabia and its rather ignominious retreat from Aden itself, which set the tone for the following period—although in Dhofar itself in 1967, it began to seem like the SAF might finally be getting the upper hand against the insurgency.
The period began not only with the permanent presence of SAF forces indicating the recognition and the growing scale of the problem but also with a more significant development with the insurgency. If the first phase had been somewhat sporadic, this new period was to become more intense, more political, and bitter. The rebels began to organize themselves more formally in response to the increasing organization of the Sultanate’s response to the rebellion. This commenced with a conference of the rebels being held during early June 1965 in which the disparate elements of the rebellion were cohered into a new body, the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF), with the express intention of removing both the Sultanate and the British presence and influence in Oman. The new body was organized around a central committee of 18 men and made its presence felt with three attacks on the same day. Although these attacks were no different to those that preceded the formation of the DLF, they were important psychologically and politically. Indeed, the DLF itself dated the beginning of the rebellion from this date: June 9, 1965.
The rest of 1965 saw the first real engagements occur between the SAF and the newly formed DLF, which (from the outside) was holding together quite well given the coalitional nature of the organization, which brought together tribal elements, returning Dhofaris from overseas, and men from the towns, especially the regional capital, Salalah. Internally, however, there was increasing discord over the true nature and aims of the organization and especially between Marxists and those who were more specifically Dhofari nationalists. In what perhaps justified the authorities’ focus on the north, there was even division about forming some kind of allegiance with the Imamate rebels from the north, which also fed into tensions between elements of the DLF.37 Throughout the period in question, it is unclear just how large the DLF were, with figures ranging from the low hundreds to perhaps some 600 men who had involvement in the organization. Peterson puts a more specific figure of around 70 men who were fighting in the newly formed Dhofar Liberation Army.38 It is also clear the Saudis were still offering both moral and material assistance to the rebels despite the growing Marxist influence within the movement.
In terms of the counterinsurgency response, the period was something of a mixed bag. The newly arrived SAF began to take the fight to the enemy from the outset and in particular in response to the attacks of June 9. There were a number of contacts in June 1965 and through the summer before calm prevailed again until the autumn when in October and especially November the rebels had been resupplied by the Saudis. The rebels began to engage the SAF more regularly and made attacks on the government forts at Mirbat on November 8 and Sadh on November 30. It was becoming clear that the SAF was not large enough to cover its responsibilities in northern Oman let alone be stretched to meet the needs of fighting in the south as well. The fighting that had intensified toward the end of 1965 continued into 1966, with multiple attacks on SAF and oil company convoys. The new year also saw the first British casualty of the war when on March 13, 1966, Captain Woodman, a British officer serving with the Northern Frontier Regiment of the SAF was killed during an ambush. Perhaps one of the major events of 1966 was the attempt on Sultan Sa’id’s life on April 26 by a number of the troops of the Dhofar force he was inspecting. This was however unsuccessful, and the culprits were either killed or wounded.39 Only the element made up of the former slaves had remained loyal; the tribal elements had then gone over to the rebels, and the few that remained were deeply suspect.
If it was needed, this event probably brought home to both the Sultan and everyone else the true gravity of the threat and led to further operations against the rebels. At this point it is worth noting that the nature of the operations was determined by the climate of the province whereby there was an annual lull during the summer months when the southwest monsoon leads to dense mists forming on the jebel, making movement difficult for both sides. A further important event during 1966 was the only direct British operation, as aside from the security of the RAF base in Salalah and the provision of loan service personnel to serve in specific roles in SAF, there were no British forces in Oman. This operation did not even take place in the Sultanate but across the border in October 1966 in the then still British-controlled South Yemen at the town of Hauf, which had become something of a base for rebel activity. While the operation was not as successful as it might have been—and, for reasons that still puzzle some, was not repeated—British troops still managed to detain some rebels, intercept supplies, disrupt their opponents, and make them more cautious in some of their activities.
The year had been dramatic, but when looked at from a more strategic level, the fighting had reached something of a plateau with neither side really able to gain the upper hand over the other. There had been some intense fighting though, and the counterinsurgents had been on a steep learning curve. The rebels were suffering from the increasing divisions in their leadership, from the widespread activity of the SAF preventing them from having a rear area to which to retreat, and from the inevitable feast and famine nature of their supply chain. This period is usefully explored in Peter Thwaites’s memoir,40 which contains useful insights into the evolution of tactics and some of the constraints the SAF faced in terms of orders from the Sultan and on the issues of numbers and equipment. There had been moves to create a new unit to supplement the strength of the SAF, and the Desert Regiment was formed to address this constraint, but the counterinsurgents still faced problems with a lack of good quality intelligence, reliable maps, sufficient local knowledge, and a lack of air support, which could have transformed their chances.
Despite these constraints, 1967 was to be a better year for the SAF when it finally began to seize the advantage and tried to establish itself on the jebel and to try not only to avoid the classic ambush points but to turn the tables and attempt to ambush the rebels themselves. The DLF had been severely reduced, and the SAF appeared to be growing in strength and confidence, even arranging a firepower demonstration on August 9, which Peterson describes as “attended by … an assembled crowd of 4,000–5,000 … [t]he hour long demonstration was carried out with 25-pounder and 75mm guns, and SOAF rocket firing Provosts.”41 This was another point at which the divided, weakened DLF could have been finished off, however, just as before the SAF could not be sure how weak the DLF was. The SAF was only living hand-to-mouth let alone able to really build up its strength effectively or quickly because of the severe budgetary constraints facing the Sultanate. The first export of oil did not occur until September 1967 and even then in modest quantities, and Britain had cut its subsidy to the Sultan months before this in anticipation of the oil revenues beginning to flow. What made things worse was that had the divisions among the rebels been exploited at this point by some carefully calibrated incentives and gestures on behalf of the government, then the rebels could have been divided and rendered even less effective. It seems that the Sultan’s attitude of dealing severely with those who disobeyed him, coupled with the poor advice and lack of a vision among advisers on the future of Oman, prevented this opportunity being taken. It was to be the last one for some considerable time.
During this period both the nature and intensity of the insurgency changed radically. This is critical when combined with the wider Cold War context of proxy war, destabilization, and the seemingly unstoppable spread of Marxist ideologies—in particular, with what was occurring in South Yemen. This had become a Marxist-run state with the victory of the National Liberation Front (NLF) over their Nasserite-inspired rivals, the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY), in the brief but brutal internecine conflict, which ignited the moment the last British troops had left Aden.42 In many ways, the advent of a secure rear area and consistent supplies led to a transformation in the conflict, and in short order from the SAF having finally established a lead, this was not simply taken away, but by the end of the period the situation had been transformed and the rebels were in the ascendant, controlling all of the mountains and the coastal towns of the west of the province, Rakyut falling last in August 1969. The government was essentially left with just the control of the region’s capital, yet even Salalah—the RAF base after August 1968—was coming under regular mortar attack. The situation was worsened by the seeming indecision of Sultan Sa’id who was slow in approving further expansion of the SAF (although some new equipment including modern rifles and Strikemaster jet aircraft was approved) but was unwilling to allow the implementation of a different counterinsurgency approach based on “hearts and minds.” A further major development during this period was the change in the explicit nature of the rebellion itself. The old tensions within the DLF came to a head, and with the new support of the neighboring NLF, the DLF was transformed in September 1968 into the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG), an avowedly Marxist grouping with far wider goals than simply “liberating” Dhofar. As Peterson sees it, this was perhaps another opportunity to defeat the rebels since those original insurgents were increasingly alienated from the cause by Marxists who had little time for Islamic tradition or tribal culture.43 Yet this was not taken because of an unwillingness on behalf of the Sultan to embrace a different strategy.
The situation in Oman was clearly not just on the slide: it had begun to look terminal. With Britain having announced that it would withdraw from the Gulf by the end of 1971, it became much harder for a last ditch rescue effort led by British troops, naval and airpower to take place, not least with the rise of a new rebel group in the north of Oman, the National Democratic Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Occupied Arabian Gulf (NDFLOAG), which led attacks on SAF installations, particularly the one at Izki on June 12, 1970. This was later followed at the end of 1970 by fears of an Iraqi-trained rebel group being landed on the Musandam Peninsula, Omani soil that controlled the crucial shipping lanes of the Strait of Hormuz. This necessitated a British operation to secure the peninsula.44
In the face of a rapidly deteriorating situation, imminent British withdrawal, and the inflexibility of Sultan Sa’id, a palace coup was launched on July 23, 1970, which successfully deposed Sa’id and led to his son Qaboos ascending to the throne and Sa’id retreating into exile at The Dorchester Hotel in London.45 Sa’id has often been unfairly criticized for his role46 but was in many ways a very successful monarch considering the state he inherited. Nevertheless, he was losing his touch after almost 40 years on the throne, and it was time for a fresh approach and for the momentum to be regained.
This is perhaps the pivotal period of the campaign in which the strategy was transformed and Britain began to exert more effort to support the new Sultan. The new strategy had actually been designed by Lt. Colonel Watts of the SAS in a visit to Oman early in 1970 long before the coup d’etat in July, but it was not implemented until October that year when the SAS presence had built up. This presence was expanded the following year and renewed by the British government over the course of the remaining years of the conflict. The overall aim of the plan was simple and was focused more on civilian objectives than purely military ones, although the improvement and expansion of the SAF was a critical element in the campaign’s overall success. The simple goal was “to secure Dhofar for development” and broadly speaking proceeded along a five-point plan of action, which can be summarized as follows: 1. Improve intelligence.47 2. Develop an information service to deliver the government’s perspective to those who were both neutral and committed to the rebellion. 3. Deliver medical and other humanitarian aid to the jebelis and try to improve their lives. 4. Provide effective veterinary services, as this would improve their livelihoods.48 5. Directly involve the Dhofaris in the fight for the Sultan and against the rebels.
This last involved the issuing of a general amnesty, with appropriate financial incentives to get disaffected rebels and jebelis to join the government side and was the only overt military aspect to the plan. Led by small teams of the SAS, these surrendered enemy personnel (SEP) were formed into units known as Firqa and used their knowledge of the terrain and enemy tactics to turn the tables on the rebels in the mountains. While this strategy was broadly successful, it was not without its difficulties and there is some debate in the literature about some of the claims that have been made about its transformational impact on the campaign.49
Other developments during this period when both the rebels and the SAF were escalating the conflict included a new strategy to exploit the division between Islam and Marxism among the population and the rebels and growing expansion of the SAF and the establishment of a dedicated HQ in Dhofar to coordinate the conduct of the campaign. RAF Salalah was now coming under almost daily attack, which necessitated the deployment of elements of the RAF Regiment to protect it. They were soon joined by a Royal Artillery detachment, which could target rebels on the jebel to drive them back from the base and prevent mortar attacks.
As the SAF grew, it began to try to regain a more permanent hold on the mountains and to be more active in operations there, especially from the beginning of 1971. This was later expanded to the first major “presence ops,” of which one of the most significant, Operation Jaguar, began in October 1971 with the aim of securing as much of the eastern section of the jebel as possible. This was the beginning of the slow moves to both bottle up and sweep the insurgency back toward its bases in Yemen. Peterson describes Operation Jaguar as, “signal[ling] a great turning point: it produced the first permanent base on the Jebel, and from it date all SAF offensives in Dhufar [sic], which led to … eventual victory.”50 Operation Simba, launched in 1972 to establish a strategic army position on the Omani-Yemeni border at Sarfait on a key rebel supply route from their base at Hauf, was a key consolidatory mission, which helped the SAF to gradually dominate the jebel.
This later entailed bombing operations and clandestine raid on Hauf after the Yemenis had provoked border skirmishes by attacking the Omani fort at Habarut.
Another key development during this period that built into real momentum that lasted for the rest of the war was the expansion of the Omani Air Force (SOAF) and in particular the arrival of further helicopters from both Britain and Iran. This marked the beginnings of assistance from other regional states in a variety of forms, financial (even from Saudi Arabia), material, and direct military assistance, with personnel beginning to arrive from Jordan to assist with Special Forces missions and intelligence activities.
As the pressure began to rise on the rebels, they made mistakes, perhaps their largest—if only in psychological terms—was their decision on July 19, 1972, to attack the small garrison at the Mirbat fort to the east of Salalah. An estimated 250 rebels assaulted the beleaguered garrison who were led by nine men from the SAS. This led, thanks to the timely arrival of reinforcements and an air bombardment, to the defeat of the rebel assault and a decisive victory. It was clear that the rebels now no longer had the upper hand and could not defeat the SAF in open battle—the tide had clearly turned.51
The final period can be usefully described as long but comprised of incremental successes culminating in a series of operations in 1975, which were designed to contain and eliminate the remaining sizeable pockets of resistance on the western end of the jebel. In terms of strategy and tactics, little had really changed; it was more the case of the plans being sped up and operations intensified. This was greatly facilitated by the arrival of significant development spending in Dhofar, further expansion of the SAF and the Air Force, as well as greater confidence. But in terms of speeding up the implementation of the plan, it was the arrival in large numbers of foreign troops, particularly from Iran, as well as the Abu Dhabi Defense Force agreeing to help patrol northern Oman, which thus freed up SAF troops for operations in the south. This in turn meant that the plan to contain and defeat the rebels all the way back to Yemen was rapidly rolled out. The construction of three “lines,” which divided up the jebel, interdicting rebel supply lines, making movement difficult, and offering hard points against which groups of rebels could be trapped by SAF and SAS/Firqa sweeps, was of great importance to eventual victory. These lines, the Sarfait, Hornbeam, and Damavand,52 were expensive to construct and drained large amounts of manpower resources, but given that the Iranian troops were ideally suited to this work, it further freed up SAF troops for offensive sweep operations between the lines, enabling the counterinsurgents to clear the mountains and keep them clear.
As by the end of 1974 it seemed as if the PFLOAG was firmly on its knees and ripe for the picking, the SAF duly launched a major operation against one of the rebels’ remaining strongholds, the Shirshitti cave complex. The operation was unsuccessful and led to a number of casualties. This perhaps marked a lesson that the rebels were not going to give in so easily, and the rest of 1975 was spent in dealing with the remaining rebels in the western part of Dhofar where they had been progressively bottled up, thanks to the success of the strategy.53
Thus, when on December 4, 1975, Sultan Qaboos was able to declare victory having been advised that “Dhofar was safe for development,” it was with a little surprise on behalf of all involved that circumstances had been turned around and that the rebels had been defeated so quickly. Most estimates in 1973–74 had been placing the end of the war around the period 1977–78.
Clearly the victory had been hard won and was made up of multiple components and a good deal of luck. Speaking at the Anglo-Omani Society in London on January 25, 1977, Brigadier John Akehurst who had commanded the Dhofar Brigade put the victory down to a set of eight important features:
While this list is not comprehensive and the emphasis is given differently by others involved as well as by those who have researched the subject since, it does give a useful summary of the factors involved and demonstrates that a mix of resources, direction, coercion, and development were key to victory.
With the announcement that the war was effectively over at the end of 1975 came the hope that it was indeed done, a mere decade after the DLF believed it had begun. What instead transpired was a continuing need both to combat the remaining rebels and to continue the development efforts in Dhofar. The bulk of the hard work had been done though, and a process of drawdown was slowly begun by the British: the SAS largely left in September 1976 and the RAF airbases were removed over the course of 1977.55 Iranian troops remained until just before the Iranian Revolution, but British Loan Service Personnel continued to play an important role, as did contract officers.56
While the direct military campaigning was ongoing, there were other key elements and changes occurring in the Sultanate. Thus, although it is important and profitable to study the military side in its own right, one cannot easily divorce the success that the military campaign was having after 1970 from the wider attempts essentially to build a modern state from scratch. In 1969 the Sultanate’s administrative structures were rudimentary at best and outside of the main oil company, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), and the SAF, these structures were virtually unrecognizable to modern eyes. What occurred from late 1970 onward was nothing short of a transformation in government structures and procedures, as well as in terms of the demands placed on the state and its nascent bureaucracy. Oman essentially embarked on a process of intensifying the conduct of the war in the southern province, constructing a state, and building up its infrastructure from virtually nothing—in just five years. It was a truly remarkable achievement, and it is the rapidity and the visibility of the progress made in the development sphere—schools, roads, hospitals, ports, electricity, agricultural transformations, clinics, police, housing, and water management, to name just a few elements—which enabled the state to secure its position and its legitimacy not just in the north but also in Dhofar. The way in which the state was able to organize its war effort and rapidly expand its armed forces was also vital and is tied to this wider process of development and statebuilding.57 Ultimately it is this transformation in the vision and achievement of the Omani state that facilitated victory in the counterinsurgency campaign. The change of tone and the vision created for the new Oman dealt with any real grievances and made people feel a part of the new enterprise.
It is clear that in many ways the Dhofar war can indeed be described as a “model campaign.” This is not to say that mistakes were not made or opportunities were not missed; there were numerous constraints in place, and Britain’s role was not always as extensive as perhaps it could have been even after the pivotal change of 1970. The temptation is always to extract lessons from successful counterinsurgency campaigns, yet this is not always advisable. What happened in Oman was unique and was facilitated by a set of circumstances that are unlikely to occur again. Like many other counterinsurgency campaigns, that in Dhofar entailed a lot of trial and error, relearning of lessons hard won elsewhere, and not a little good fortune. Despite this, it is evident that the campaign was well fought, particularly after 1970 when the right general approach was taken. The campaign was probably more brutal and coercive than the picture generally given in the literature, but it was guided by a genuine “hearts and minds” approach, which involved thoughtful use of allies, the whole of the Omani state, and a central role for Britain, which would be difficult to replicate today. There are both tactical and operational lessons to be learnt from this campaign, particularly about intelligence, propaganda, air support, psychological operations (psy-ops), the role of special forces, the use of coethnic troops and militias, civil aid, veterinary services, supply, embedding of expertise, division of territory, local knowledge, and operational planning. There is undoubtedly more work to be done on these (and other) themes, which will be useful for future counterinsurgencies. Indeed, more widely, the academic literature on the Dhofar war as a whole is still rather limited, and it is likely that there will be more extensive reassessments and critiques of the conflict as it receives more scholarly attention. Indeed, the first rumblings of these debates can perhaps now be seen,58 but what is clear is that the Dhofar war proves that in theory all wars, even counterinsurgencies, are winnable given a sound understanding of the conflict and when armed with sufficient will and resources. This is even more the case when one seeks to learn lessons not merely from the military but also the political side of the conflict, too.
1. See, for example, Col. Alexander Alderson, “ ‘Partnering’ with Local Forces: A British Army Perspective,” in Military Assistance to a Foreign Country: Army, Tactique, no. 23 (2012): 19–23, available in PDF from …www.cdef.terre.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/…/Doctrine23us.pdf
2. Ranulph Fiennes, Where Soldiers Fear to Tread (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1975).
3. John Akehurst, We Won a War: The Campaign in Oman 1965–1975 (Salisbury: Michael Russell, 1982).
4. David Arkless, The Secret War: Dhofar, 1971–72 (London: William Kimber, 1990).
5. Peter Thwaites, Muscat Command (London: Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword, 1995).
6. Ian Gardiner, In the Service of the Sultan: A First Hand Account of the Dhofar Insurgency (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2006).
7. Andrew Higgins, With the SAS and Other Animals: A Vet’s Experiences during the Dhofar War 1974 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011).
8. Bryan Ray, Dangerous Frontiers: Campaigning in Somaliland and Oman (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2008).
9. John Akehurst, Generally Speaking: Then Hurrah for the Life of a Soldier (Norwich: Michael Russell, 1999).
10. Ken Perkins, A Fortunate Soldier (London: Brassey’s, 1988).
11. Tony Jeapes, SAS Operation Oman (London: HarperCollins, 1980).
12. Peter De La Billiere, Looking for Trouble: SAS to Gulf Command (London: HarperCollins, 1995).
13. Paul Sibley, A Monk in the SAS (Spitzerwize, 2009).
14. Anthony Kemp, The SAS Savage Wars of Peace—1947 to the Present (London: John Murray, 1994).
15. Peter Ratcliffe, Eye of the Storm: Twenty-Five Years in Action with the SAS (London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2001).
16. For a solid and brief overview, see, Jim White, “Oman 1965–1976: From Certain Defeat to Decisive Victory,” Small Wars Journal, 2008. Available at http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs- temp/93-white.pdf
17. Interview with Gen. Ken Perkins, Commander Sultan’s Armed Forces, 1975–77, Telephone, November 19, 2007.
18. J. E. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies: The Sultanate’s Struggle for Supremacy (London: Saqi Books, 2007).
19. Described as “one of the world’s leading authorities on Oman,” Calvin H. Allen Jr., “Oman’s Insurgencies: The Sultanate’s Struggle for Supremacy, and Oman: Politics and Society in the Qaboos State (Review),” Middle East Journal 64, no. 1 (2010): 143–46.
20. Fred Halliday, Arabia without Sultans (London: Saqi Books, 2001); see also Fred Halliday, Mercenaries: Counter Insurgency in the Gulf (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1977); and Fred Halliday, “Counter-Insurgency in Oman,” Gulf Studies, no. 1 (April 1976): 13–35.
21. Walter C. Ladwig, III, “Supporting Allies in Counterinsurgency: Britain and the Dhofar Rebellion,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 19, no.1 (2008): 62–88; Geraint Hughes, “A ‘Model Campaign’ Reappraised: The Counter-Insurgency War in Dhofar, Oman, 1965–1975,” Journal of Strategic Studies 32, no. 2 (2009): 271–305; and Marc R. De Vore, “A More Complex and Conventional Victory: Revisiting the Dhofar Counterinsurgency, 1963–1975,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 23, no. 1 (2012): 144–73.
22. These quotations are both taken from the article’s abstract indicating their importance to the article’s argument.
23. Ian Gardiner offers an interesting and seemingly balanced insight into the Iranian role, but this is a surprisingly lively debate at times and was ongoing among British officers and officials interviewed in 2006–08.
24. DEFE 13/779, Dhofar Campaign, opened in December 1965, but much of the work on the formal chronology was conducted during 1977. The chronology actually ends in December 1975, but there are elements that were clearly intended to be fed into a continuation of the chronology up to at least 1975. Thus, for the sections after 1972, this chapter relies (in particular) more upon Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies; work conducted for James Worrall, Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman: Political, Military and Diplomatic Relations at the End of Empire (London: IB Tauris, 2014); Ken Perkins, “Oman, 1975: The Year of Decision,” RUSI Journal 124, no. 1 (1979): 38–45; and Penelope Tremayne, “Guevara through the Looking Glass: A View of the Dhofar War,” RUSI Journal 119, no. 3 (1974): 39–43.
25. For a full history, see Robert Alston and Stuart Laing, Unshook till the End of Time: A History of Relations between Britain and Oman, 1650–1970 (London: Gilgamesh Publishing, 2012).
26. James Worrall, “The British Historical View of Oman and Ibadism,” in Oman and Overseas, edited by Michaela Hoffman-ruf and Abdulrahman Al Salimi (New York/Zurich: Olms, 2013), 299–312.
27. This is an element that is visible among a number of other important themes surrounding the war in James Worrall, “Transitioning in and out of COIN: Efficiency, Legitimacy and Power in Oman,” in At the End of Military Intervention: Historical, Theoretical and Applied Solutions to Transition, Handover and Withdrawal, edited by Robert Johnson and Timothy Clack (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
28. David Smiley, Arabian Assignment (London: Leo Cooper, 1975).
29. For a full exploration of this conflict, see J. E. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies—The Sultanate’s Struggle for Supremacy (London: Saqi Books, 2007), 62–182.
30. For more on the context, see Worrall, Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman, chap. 1.
31. J. E. Peterson, “Oman’s Diverse Society: Southern Oman,” Middle East Journal 58, no. 2 (2004): 254–69.
32. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 186–87.
33. This at least seems the most likely explanation, as the sheer banality of the story has the ring of truth. It is explained more fully in Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 188–89.
34. See David Gwynne-James and Alan Williams, “Recollections of Service in the Sultan’s Armed Forces, Muscat and Oman, 1962–1964,” Asian Affairs 41, no. 3 (2010): 399–421.
35. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 192–93.
36. Askers, the English plural of the Arabic/Swahili word Askari, originally meaning simply “soldier” (in fact, it originally came to Arabic from the Persian word lascar), came to mean simply locally raised troops and was spread throughout most of the European colonial empires and beyond.
37. For more on this, see, especially, Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 194–95.
38. Ibid., 196.
39. J. E. Peterson, “Oman: The 1966 Assassination Attempt on Sultan Sa’id b. Taymur,” Arabian Peninsula Background Note, No. APBN-004, August 2004, http://www.jepeterson.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/APBN-004_Oman_1966_Assassination_Attempt_on_Sultan_Said.pdf.
40. Peter Thwaites, Muscat Command (London: Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword, 1995).
41. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 210.
42. Jonathan Walker, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia 1962–67 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2005).
43. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 217.
44. See Worrall, Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman, chap. 3.
45. For more on this, see Worrall, Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman, 72–74.
46. For the case for Sa’id, see Uzi Rabi, The Emergence of States in a Tribal Society: Oman under Sa’id Bin Taymur (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006).
47. For more on this, see Clive Jones, “Military Intelligence, Tribes and Britain’s War in Dhofar, 1970–1976,” The Middle East Journal 65, no. 4 (2011): 557–74.
48. Andrew Higgins, With the SAS and Other Animals: A Vet’s Experiences during the Dhofar War 1974 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2011).
49. As Clive Jones puts it in a footnote: “Concern over the effectiveness and reliability of firqas is a subject that has been rather underplayed in literature dealing with the Dhofar campaign.” See, for example, Major General Tony Jeapes, SAS Secret War (London: Harper Collins, 1996). Jeapes, while noting their faults, regards the firqas as crucial to the counterinsurgency campaign. By contrast, see FCO 8/2022 Secret: Oman Intelligence Report No. 52 (October 21–November 3, 1973). This report, written by the British military attaché to Muscat, Col. C. E Welch, paints a rather less benign view of their effectiveness. In Clive Jones, “From the Deniable to the Acceptable? Britain, Intelligence and Covert Action in Yemen and Oman 1962–1976,” and in Tore T. Petersen, ed., Challenging Retrenchment: The United States, Great Britain & The Middle East 1950–1980 (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2010), 169.
50. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 276.
51. Ian Illych Martinez, “The Battle of Mirbat: Turning Point in the Omani Dhofar Rebellion,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 23, no. 3 (2012): 517–26.
52. Damavand is of course the name of Iran’s highest mountain, indicating that it was manned by Iranian troops.
53. Peterson, Oman’s Insurgencies, 346–48.
54. DEFE 13/779, “Text of Brigadier John Akehurst’s Address to the Anglo-Omani Society, London, 25 January 1977,” Dhofar Campaign, 18.
55. James Worrall, “Britain’s Last Bastion in Arabia: The End of the Dhofar War, the Labour Government and the Withdrawal from RAF Salalah and Masirah, 1974–1977,” in Challenging Retrenchment: The United States, Great Britain & The Middle East 1950–1980, ed. Tore T. Petersen (Trondheim: Tapir Academic Press, 2010), 115–40.
56. Worrall, “Transitioning In and Out of COIN: Efficiency, Legitimacy and Power in Oman.”
57. For more detail on this, see James Worrall, Statebuilding and Counterinsurgency in Oman: Political, Military and Diplomatic Relations at the End of Empire (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014).
58. As highlighted in the literature review in the introduction to this chapter.