The Dhofar rebellion, also known as the Dhofar War, or the 9 June revolution, was a revolution that began in 1965 in the Dhofar region of the Arabian Peninsula against British imperialism and Sultans Said ibn Taimur and Qaboos bin Said of the Al Bu Said dynasty in Oman. The conflict began with the formation of the Dhofar Liberation Front, a nationalist group which later adopted Marxism–Leninism and aimed to create a people's democratic state in the Persian Gulf region. The rebels also held the broader goals of Arab nationalism, which included ending British influence in the region. Sultanic and British goals, on the other hand, were to halt "the spread of communism" as part of the broader Cold War.
The war initially took the form of a low-level insurgency, with guerrilla warfare being used against Anglo-Sultanic forces and the foreign presence in the country. Several factors, such as the British withdrawal from Aden and support from South Yemen and China, brought the rebels increased success, with the communists controlling the entirety of the region by the late 1960s.
The 1970 Omani coup d'état led to the overthrow of Sultan Said bin Taimur by his reformist son Qaboos bin Said, who was backed by a major British military intervention in the conflict. The British initiated a "hearts and minds" campaign to counter the communist rebels and began the process of modernising the Sultan of Oman's Armed Forces (SAF) while simultaneously deploying the Special Air Service (SAS) to conduct anti-insurgency operations against the rebels. This approach led to a string of victories against the rebels and was boosted by the Shah of Iran's intervention in the conflict to support the Sultanate of Oman in 1973.
Background
Dhofar is a geographic region that is located in eastern South Arabia. Its size is approximately 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2), and consists of an intermittent narrow, fertile coastal plain, on which stand Salalah, its largest city, and other towns such as Taqah and Mirbat. It had a population of about 35,000. Behind this are the rugged hills of the Jebel Dhofar. The western portion of this range is known as Jebel Qamar, the central part as the Jebel Qara, and the eastern part as the Jebel Samhan.
From June to September each year, the Jebel receives moisture-laden winds, the Khareef or monsoon, and is shrouded in cloud. The narrow 250-mile coastal plain benefits from the southwest monsoon from late May through September. As a result, the coastal plain and the seaward slopes of the 3,000-4,000-foot mountains are green and fertile. From the crest of the mountains. Numerous wadis run northward through a barren and arid landscape toward the sands of the Rub al Khali-the Empty Quarter.
Oman was a very underdeveloped country. Sultan Said bin Taimur, an absolute ruler under British influence, had outlawed almost all technological development and relied on British support to maintain the rudimentary functions of the state. Oman at the time was a de facto British colony. During his collaboration with the British empire, the sultan committed himself to maintaining an iron-fisted policy, slowing down the development of his country to the detriment of the Omani population, who lived in atrocious and unhealthy conditions. Fred Halliday described the Isolation of Oman, saying that "If North Yemen was regarded as an isolated Arabian country, a Middle Eastern Tibet, Oman was so cut off from the outside world that no one even noticed it was isolated; until 1970 it was ultra-Tibet."
Dhofar was independent for most of its history. It became a dependency of Oman in 1879 as part of the Anglo-Ottoman rivalry. Dhofar was culturally and linguistically distinct from the rest of Oman.
The roots of the insurgency lie in the long-standing demands by Dhofari traditionalists for separation from Oman. For centuries, the sultans of Oman have claimed authority in Dhofar, but the province has been plagued by almost constant dissidence and unrest, as Dhofaris have persistently resisted this outside rule. Separated from the more populous part of Oman by hundreds of miles of desert, Dhofar has been and is more closely linked religiously, tribally, economically, and linguistically to the Hadhramaut area of Yemen than to the rest of Oman.
Dhofaris, as well as other Omanis, became increasingly restive in the early 1960s as a result of the social and political restrictions imposed upon them by the reactionary and authoritarian Sultan Said bin Taimur. The discovery of oil in the sultanate in 1963 made a small difference to the Dhofaris; most of what little economic and social development was started by the government was undertaken in Oman itself. A growing number of Sultan Said's Dhofari subjects came to resent his neglect, maladministration, and heavy-handed eccentricities.
The rebellion is usually traced to an uprising in 1963 staged by members of the Bait Kathir tribe who had joined the Dhofar Benevolent Society, a religious and social welfare organization. This group was composed mostly of Dhofari nationalists, favoring secession; they were soon joined by members of the local branch of the leftist Arab Nationalist Movement and some Dhofaris returning from service in the British-sponsored Trucial Oman Scouts. The merger resulted in the creation of the Dhofar Liberation Front, which pledged to detach Dhofar from Oman by armed force. By 1964, Iraq may have been providing military training for a few rebels; by mid-1965, the front was receiving limited financial and military aid from Egypt and Iraq.
Rebellion
Early years
Arab People of Dhufar! A revolutionary vanguard has emerged from among you, believing in God and country, has taken upon itself the task of liberating this country from the rule of the despotic Al Bu Said Sultans, whose dynasty has been identified with the hordes of the British imperialist occupation. Brothers! This people has long and bitterly suffered from dispersion, unemployment, poverty, illiteracy, and disease - those pernicious weapons introduced under the protection of the bayonets of British Imperialism, and used against the Dhofaris by the government of the Sultans of Muscat.
— The first paragraph of the 9 June Declaration of Armed Struggle, which was announced by the Dhofar Liberation Front in 1965.
On 9 June 1965, the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF) conducted its first ambush on an oil company truck north-west of the Thamrit road in Dhofar, where the driver was killed. The DLF's first "martyr", Said bin-Ghanim al-Kathiri, was also killed. Following the attack, the DLF announced 9 June as the first day of the revolution, granting it mythical significance for the Dhofaris. The DLF also published its first document, titled the 9 June Declaration of Armed Struggle, which framed the action as a clash between the Sultan, who was backed by the British, and the DLF.
The revolt was initially small and limited for the most part to sporadic attacks on traffic along the mountain road linking Salalah and Thamarit. The Sultan took a complacent view of the rebellion, considering it little more than another expression of the tribal and religious enmity that had frequently plagued his regime. He preferred to keep his small British-led army near Muscat and ordered local security forces to deal with the rebels.
The Sultan had relied on the Dhofar Force, a locally recruited irregular unit of only 60 men, to maintain order in the region. In April 1966, members of this unit staged an assassination attempt against the Sultan. The event led the Sultan to retire to his palace in Salalah, never to be seen in public again. This only served to add to rumours that the British were running Oman through a "phantom" Sultan. The Sultan also launched a full-scale military offensive against the DLF, contrary to the advice of his British advisors. Heavy-handed search and destroy missions were launched in Dhofar, villages were burned, and wells were concreted over or blown up. A member of the SAF reported that after receiving heavy resistance, it "proved that the position was unattainable, and after blowing up the village wells, we evacuated the camp."
Revolutionaries' left-wing shift
It was not long before the Dhofar Liberation Front began to move to the left. A left-wing faction, largely from the Al Qarra tribe, spoke of Arab unity, socialism, anti-colonialism, and a pan-Persian Gulf revolution, but the right-wing Bait Kathir tribal faction in the front remained primarily concerned with Dhofari separatism. The eventual triumph of the leftist element was ensured by events in neighboring South Yemen, where the National Front came to power in late 1967 after the British had withdrawn.
The new regime in Aden became an active patron of the Dhofar Liberation Front, providing arms, money, an outlet for rebel publicity and propaganda, and a haven for the fighters. The Yemeni port of Hawf and the interior town of Habrut became important supply depots for materiel being passed to the insurgents. By mid-1968, the rebels were able to make daylight raids on Salalah and Mirbat, and by the end of the year, the rebels were fairly well-equipped and organized, and more aggressive.
The Hamrin delegates adopted Marxism-Leninism as their ideology, intending to "liberate all of the Gulf from British imperialism." Political scientist Fred Halliday reported during his visit to the area that "wherever we went we saw people wearing Mao and Lenin badges, reading socialist works and discussing." Works included those of Vladimir Lenin and the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Palestinian voices were given significant space in Dhufari publications, with Palestinian revolutionary writers such as Sakher Habash contributing poems and essays expressing solidarity with Dhufar. The movement's two main periodicals, the weekly Sawt al-Thawra ("Voice of the Revolution") and the monthly 9 Yunyu ("9 June"), regularly featured writings and discussions on global revolutionary and tricontinental movements.
Two congresses were held in 1965 and 1968 to define the movement's political objectives. The growing strength of the radical wing was reflected at the second congress, since described as a turning point in the rebellion, and was held in September 1968 at Hamrin. The Dhofar Liberation Front was renamed the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf, a 40-member General Command was elected to replace the old leaders, and a new statement of goals was promulgated. The new name signified the organization was no longer concentrating on Dhofari separatism, but was committed to a people's war throughout the Persian Gulf, which was described as "a single historical, geographical, and ethnic entity."
The program adopted at these two congresses was strongly tinged with communism. It aimed to establish a people's democratic republic and to expel the British army from Oman. The Front sought to establish a constitution, abolish martial law, restore freedom of the press and expression, and ensure the rights of minorities. On economic issues, it intended to nationalize the oil companies, develop industries, and implement land reform. The Front called for more social justice and affirmed its support for all Asian, African, and Latin American liberation movements. References were also made to the Palestinian struggle. The rebels opened schools to which both boys and girls had access (girls' education was forbidden in Oman until 1970). Tribalism was fought against, and social relations tended to evolve, with a specific place given to women, including in the armed struggle.
The move towards Marxism–Leninism ensured that the PFLOAG received sponsorship from both South Yemen and China. China in particular was quick to support the PFLOAG as it was a peasant-based organisation, giving it a strong Maoist credibility. Chinese support for the PFLOAG also had another benefit for them, as it acted as a counterbalance to increasing Soviet influence in the Indian Ocean. China was quick to establish an embassy in Aden and "the Yemeni regime allowed its territory to be used for channelling weapons" to the PFLOAG.
Following the Hamrin conference, the front undertook new military initiatives in Dhofar, and the number of rebel attacks increased. By mid-1970, the rebels controlled the coastline from the Aden border to within a few miles of Salalah and held many coastal villages, such as Mirbat and Sadh, east of Salalah. They moved at will through the mountains and along numerous overland routes. The environs of Salalah were sporadically attacked. In pressing their drive, the rebels enjoyed certain advantages: a sanctuary across the Aden border; admirable guerrilla terrain in the mountains and wadis; and the sympathy and cooperation of a substantial proportion of Dhofaris. It is estimated that at one time, about two-thirds of the population supported the rebels. The front looked to civilians to supply informers, messengers, lookouts, and workers.
The transformation of the DLF, combined with a new supply of Chinese and Soviet weaponry and better training ensured that the armed wing of the PFLOAG turned into an effective fighting force. In May 1968, an attack by a battalion of the Sultan's Armed Forces against a rebel position at Deefa in the Jebel Qamar was defeated by heavily armed, well-organised, and trained rebels.