Page 149 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

146 Arabia, the Gulf and the West

taken prisoner in the Russo-Persian war of 1804-13, were recruited by Saiyid
Said ibn Sultan to help hold the Wadi Sainail against an invading force from
Najd. The Persians were cut to pieces in the subsequent encounter, though a
few Russians survived to tell their tale afterwards at Bombay.
The first tangible evidence that the shah had offered, and Qabus had
accepted, military aid from Persia was the arrival in Dhufar early in 1973 of
some Persian helicopters, complete with pilots. Later in 1973 (the exact date is
obscure) they were followed by a detachment of Persian troops, some 1,200
strong. The Persians were sent into action in the third week of December 1973
to clear the Salalah-Thamarit (Midway) highway and open the overland route
to Oman. The action was successful and the road to Thamarit remained open
thereafter. Meanwhile, in the western region, at Mughshail, a few miles east of
Kharfaut, the SAF had begun the construction of a barbed-wire barrier,
equipped with ground sensors and mines, which was designed to prevent
camel-borne supplies from South Yemen from reaching the guerrillas in the
central and eastern regions. When it was completed in June 1973 the barrier,
known as the Hornbeam Line, extended from the coast for about thirty-five
miles inland. Its effect was to close off the numerous wadis running up from the
coast to the highlands as guerrilla supply routes, thereby forcing the guerrillas
to move northwards, onto the inland plateau, where the land was more open
and water-holes fewer. From this time forward the infiltration of arms and
other supplies by camel became an increasingly hazardous undertaking.
There was no doubt that by the early months of 1974 PFLOAG was feeling
the strain. The Chinese government had withdrawn its support in the spring of
1973, mainly, it would seem, out of pique at the Russians’ growing involve­
ment in the guerrilla campaign. At this stage the Russians’ attitude towards
PFLOAG was equivocal. On the one hand they were supplying arms and
other military equipment and helping to train PFLOAG guerrillas, a number
of whom were sent to the Soviet Union, usually to the Crimea, for instruction in
guerrilla techniques and the use of rocket launchers and other heavy weapons.
On the other hand, the Russians deliberately held back from wholehearted
commitment to the Front, possibly out of distaste for its Maoist leanings.
A new wave of defections was also troubling the PFLOAG general com­
mand, especially as many of the defectors were taking the sultan’s shilling and
enrolling in the irregular fighting units (firqat) which were being raised in
Dhufar as parr of the counter-insurgency campaign. The general command
itself was suffering from internal quarrels, generated by personal and ideologi­
cal antagonisms, and its ranks had been thoroughly purged at least twice. A
new Robespierre, Ahmad Abdul Samaid Daib, had emerged in the leadership
to challenge the ascendancy of the secretary-general, Muhammad Ahmad
al-Ghassani, and the constant squabbles between the two only served to
demoralize the rank and file further. How far this demoralization had gone was
revealed in August 1974 when the organization changed its name yet again to