Yemen: For Allah & the Imam

From remote Yemen last September came word of a revolution that had toppled the centuries-old dynasty of Imam Mohammed el Badr. Leader of the coup was Colonel Abdullah Sallal, 45, newly appointed commander of the palace guard, who announced in the Yemen capital of San’a that his troops had killed the Imam and were in control of the primitive, Nebraska-sized country. Weeks later it was learned that Badr had in fact escaped the shelled ruins of his palace and taken refuge in Yemen’s rugged hill country, whose warlike tribes have traditionally been loyal to the Imam.

Clouded Claims. Ever since, helped by money and supplies from the uneasy monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, the Imam and his tribal warriors have been inching doggedly back toward San’a. President Sallal appealed for help to Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, an old friend of the Imam but an even more implacable foe of the oil-rich desert dynasties who were helping Badr. Nasser rushed in Egyptian troops, whose Soviet-made guns, tanks and jets make them the Arab world’s most formidable fighting force.

Though the republicans had not in fact won the whole country, the U.S. decided reluctantly last December to recognize Sallal’s regime, having first won Nasser’s promise to withdraw his troops. Egypt’s President has not only failed to honor his pledge but has actually raised the expeditionary force to 23,000 troops on the pretext that Britain, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have all sent in forces to help the Imam. Britain, which has not recognized Sallal, fears that Egyptian penetration of the Arabian Peninsula will isolate its oil fields and deal a crippling blow to its economy.

Fearful lest the hot little war engulf the entire Middle East, the U.N. last week sent Ralph Bunche, a veteran Middle East troubleshooter who is trusted by both sides, to discuss a solution with representatives of Sallal and the Imam; from Yemen he will go to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The actual course of the fighting has been clouded by the grandiose claims of both sides and the formidable obstacles that face Western newsmen who even try to get into Yemen, let alone reach the battle lines. One who succeeded was TIME Correspondent George de Carvalho. From Beirut last week he cabled his report on a 23-day trek in which he crossed the peaks, plateaus and wadis from Aden to the Saudi Arabian border, traveling a total of 1,000 miles by camel, donkey, car and shoe leather without once leaving royalist-held territory (see map). Along the way, Correspondent De Carvalho was repeatedly shot at by Egyptian fighter planes, tanks, mortars, and artillery, saw two of his six Yemeni guards killed and one wounded in battle.

Rifles & Faith. The fighting is most intense in a 70-mile arc curving around the eastern approaches to San’a. In most areas, the royalists limit themselves to hit-and-run guerrilla raids, but here they are taking and holding ground, attacking steadily and advancing on a wide front. Reports De Carvalho: “The incredible fact is that the Egyptians are losing in Yemen. Ragged, barefoot Yemeni tribesmen, armed only with ancient rifles and faith in Allah, are kicking hell out of Nasser’s elite troops despite their overpowering Soviet equipment, overwhelmingly superior firepower, and unchallenged airpower.”

The war in Yemen is a battle be tween the 10th century and the 20th. The mountain tribes have no officers’ corps or noncoms; they simply choose their sheiks and follow them into battle. “We captured 14 field radios,” sighed Prince Abdullah Ibn Hassan, 25, a cousin of the Imam. “But none of my men know how to use them.” Nor can they use captured tanks or trucks, since none of the tribesmen know how to drive. When they attack a tank, the tribesmen first kill off the accompanying infantrymen, then often set it afire with flaming corn stalks.

The Egyptians are restricted to the few rough roads and depend on daily delivery of supplies, while the royalists can fight anywhere. Says Prince Abdullah: “All my men need is bread and bullets. We will fight until we are all dead or the Egyptians are driven into the sea. We bow only to God.”

Plastered Skirmishers. Yemen’s roads and fields are littered with the remains of dead Egyptians left to rot unburied. “Let the dogs eat the Egyptian dogs,” spat a tribesman. The few Egyptians taken prisoner seem dazed and dejected. Private Amer Hussein Bahid, 24, of Cairo, was due for discharge in January after three years’ army service. Instead, his company was airlifted to San’a and rushed off to launch a counterattack at Beit Miran. Said he: “About 25 miles from San’a we were ambushed. My company never got a chance to fight. In a few hours, more than 100 of us were killed, and I surrendered. Nasser has apparently had to call up the reserves. Complained Sergeant Ibrahim Mohsin Alkati, 32, who was a Cairo truck mechanic before he was recalled to duty: “I didn’t even know there was a war on in Yemen. I thought we were supposed to help train the Yemeni republican army.”

One battle witnessed by Correspondent De Carvalho was at El Argoup, 25 miles southeast of San’a, where 500 Yemenis commanded by Prince Abdullah attacked an Egyptian position on top of a sheer-sided hill that was fortified with six So viet T-54 tanks, a dozen armored cars and entrenched machine guns. The Yemenis, advancing in a thin skirmish line, were plastered by artillery, mortars and strafing planes. They could reply only with rifles, one mortar with 20 rounds, and a bazooka with four rounds—handled by a man who had never fired a bazooka before in his life. The fight for El Argoup lasted a week and ended in a rout that cost the Egyptians three tanks, seven armored cars and 160 dead. De Carvalho asked a haggard sheik if his men suffered from battle fatigue. The sheik frowned: “We suffer from many diseases in Yemen, but battle fatigue—what is that?”

The tribesmen’s loyalty to the Imam is not always easy to understand. Many of the present royalist leaders suffered cruelly during the 14-year reign of Badr’s father. Ahmad the Devil, whose way of pacifying the hill tribes was to take mass hostages and behead restive sheiks. Shrugged one sheik: “The Imams have ruled us for a thousand years. Some were good and some bad. We killed the bad ones sooner or later, and we prospered under the good ones.” Another reason for fighting the republicans is that the hill tribes belong to the Moslem Shia sect, of which the Imam is the religious head. The Yemenis of the coast and the south be long to the rival Sunni sect (as do most Egyptians). Though President Sallal is himself a mountain Shia, it is his misfortune to be fighting the fierce mountain Shias with lowland Sunnis—who have never been famed for martial prowess.

The Imam Mohammed el Badr is a husky, hard-looking man of 36 who roves constantly along the northwest front in a Dodge wagon and never sleeps more than two nights in the same place. In a wadi under the stars one night, he told De Carvalho: “Nasser’s biggest single target in Yemen is me.” Waving at the skies from which Egyptian jets had pounced on his forces only that day, he sighed: “Now I’m getting my reward for befriending Nasser. We were brothers, but when I refused to become his stooge, he used Sallal against me. I will never stop fighting. I will never go into exile. Win or lose, my grave will be here.”

By last week the war seemed deadlocked. However, Imam Mohammed is trying to recruit a mercenary air force, and is building up a small stock of antitank guns, recoilless rifles and mortars. Saudi Arabia, which has bankrolled the royalists so far with about $15 million, is itching to plunge into the fight. In the wake of repeated bombings of Saudi towns, Saudi Arabia’s Premier Prince Feisal warned U.S. diplomats: “I cannot sit much longer with my arms folded while Nasser attacks not only my neighbor Yemen but also my own country.”