Oman Oman
Background
Gunboat of the Royal Oman Navy prepares to transfer a
crew member injured while patrolling the Strait of Hormuz.
Courtesy Aramco World
Weapons training for women of the Royal Oman Police
Courtesy Embassy of the Sultanate of Oman, Washington
As a regional commercial power in the nineteenth
century,
Oman held territories on the island of Zanzibar off the
coast of
East Africa, in Mombasa along the coast of East Africa,
and until
1958 in Gwadar (in present-day Pakistan) on the coast of
the
Arabian Sea. When its East African possessions were lost,
Oman
withdrew into isolationism in the southeast corner of the
Arabian
Peninsula. Another of the gulf states with long-standing
ties to
the British, Oman became important in the British-French
rivalry
at the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleonic
France
challenged the British Empire for control of the trade
routes to
the East. Although nominally a fully independent
sultanate, Oman
enjoyed the protection of the empire without being, de
jure, in
the category of a colony or a protected state. With its
external
defenses guaranteed and its overseas territories lost, the
sultanate had no need for armed forces other than
mercenaries to
safeguard the personal position of the sultan.
In 1952, when the Saudis occupied Omani territory near
the Al
Buraymi Oasis, a British-led force from the Trucial Coast
fought
the incursion and retook the territory for the sultan.
Later in
the same decade, the sultan again called on British troops
to aid
in putting down a rebellion led by the former
imam (see Glossary)
of Oman, who attempted to establish a separate state free
of rule
from Muscat. British ground and air forces dispatched to
aid the
Muscat and Oman Field Force succeeded in overcoming the
rebels in
early 1959. Nevertheless, instead of a minor intertribal
affair
in Oman's hinterland, the rebellion became an
international
incident, attracting wide sympathy and support among
members of
the League of Arab States (Arab League) and the UN.
An agreement between Sultan Said ibn Taimur Al Said and
the
British government in 1958 led to the creation of the
Sultan's
Armed Forces (SAF) and the promise of British assistance
in
military development. The agreement included the detailing
of
British officers and confirmed the existing rights of
Britain's
Royal Air Force to use facilities at Salalah in Dhofar
region and
at Masirah, an island off the Omani coast in the Arabian
Sea.
Sultan Said ibn Taimur was ultraconservative and
opposed to
change of any kind. Kindled by Arab nationalism, a
rebellion
broke out in 1964 in Dhofar, the most backward and
exploited area
of Oman. Although begun as a tribal separatist movement
against a
reactionary ruler, the rebellion was backed by leftist
elements
in the PDRY. Its original aim was the overthrow of Said
ibn
Taimur, but, by 1967, under the name of the Popular Front
for the
Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf--which in 1974 was
changed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman
(PFLO)--
it adopted much wider goals. Supported by the Soviet Union
through the PDRY, it hoped to spread revolution throughout
the
conservative regimes of the Arabian Peninsula.
Said ibn Taimur's reprisals against the Dhofari people
tended
to drive them into the rebel camp. In 1970, as the Dhofari
guerrilla attacks expanded, Said ibn Taimur's son, Qabus
ibn Said
Al Said, replaced his father in a coup carried out with
the
assistance of British officers. Qabus ibn Said, a
Sandhurst
graduate and veteran of British army service, began a
program to
modernize the country and to develop the armed forces. In
addition to British troops and advisers, the new sultan
was
assisted by troops sent by the shah of Iran. Aid also came
from
India, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the Trucial
Coast, all
interested in ensuring that Oman did not become a
"people's
republic." An Iranian brigade, along with artillery and
helicopters, arrived in Dhofar in 1973. After the arrival
of the
Iranians, the combined forces consolidated their positions
on the
coastal plain and moved against the guerrillas' mountain
stronghold. By stages, the Omanis and Iranians gradually
subdued
the guerrilla forces, pressing their remnants closer and
closer
to the PDRY border. In December 1975, having driven the
PFLO from
Omani territory, the sultan declared that the war had been
won.
Total Omani, British, and Iranian casualties during the
final
two-and-one-half years of the conflict were about 500.
Data as of January 1993
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