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The Yemen
civil war lasted from 1962 till 1970 and it involved the
Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen`s royalists and the Yemen
Arab Republic` s fractions. The Saudi Arabia supported the
royalists and the Soviet Union and Egypt helped the
republicans. Some foreign conventional and irregular forces
had also their contribution.
Gamal Abdel
Nasser, the Egypt`s president contributed with 70,000 troops
to help the republicans.
After some peace conferences and military
steps, the result of the war was a stalemate. The military
historians of Egypt saw the Yemen War as similar to the
Vietnam War. |
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The military
intervention of Egypt in Yemen was seen as being disastrous.
The general staff of Egypt organized the Yemen War in three
operational goals. The air phase, that started with the jet
trainers made to carry and strafe bombs, and ended with
fighter bombers situated close to the Saudi-Yemeni border,
was the first phase.
The Egyptian
sorties were planned to attack the royalist formations
situated on the ground, with high-tech air power. The second
phase constituted in securing the important routes that led
to San` a and it was a combination with the air strikes of
Egypt. The biggest offensive that was based on this tactic
was called the ‘Ramadan Offensive’ and it lasted from March
1963 to February 1964. It was based on opening and then
securing the roads that make the connection between San` a
and Sadah and from there to East.
The Egyptian forces
had a success that consisted in the refugee of the royalist
resistance in mountains and hills where they regrouped and
carried their offensive against the Egyptian and republican
units that were controlling the roads and the towns. The
third offensive of the strategy consisted in the tribes`
pacification and the expenditure of some very big amounts of
money for the humanitarian problems and in the tribal
leaders` outright bribery. Till 1967 the Egypt` s forces
were concentrated only to defeat the triangle that linked
Taiz, Hodeida and San` a while they were attacking the North
Yemen and the Saudi Arabia with the air sorties. In 1967,
August, Nasser called 15.000 of the troops from Yemen, with
the goal of making up for 15.000 Egyptians captured, killed
or missing, after the 6 days war.
Egypt increased the
taxes of the upper and middle classes; also, the monthly
compulsory savings of the workers were raised with 50%, the
overtime pay was reduced, the most important programs were
curtailed and the sugar ration was cut by a third. The only
things that were increased were the military expenditures,
from $140 million to about $1 billion. The president Nasser
increased the prices of movies tickets, beer, railroad
fares, cigarettes and of the long distances bus tickets.
Because of the Suez Canal closing, Egypt lost about
$5.000.000 per week and the hard currency debt of the
country was about $1.5 billion. More, the reserves of
foreign exchange went to $100 million. These was enough for
Egypt to withdraw from the war.
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