Egypt: Microcosm of a Struggle

It was certainly a bad week for Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. He lost a trusted friend and ally in the helicopter death of Iraq’s President Abdul Salam Aref (see MILESTONES). In Yemen, a pro-Nasser Republican leader was shot down by an assassin. But Nasser’s biggest trouble occurred right at home, and it was caused by the army, which is normally considered the strongest supporter of his regime. The government announced the arrest of 20 top officers on charges of plotting a coup. The word in Cairo was variously that the officers were at loggerheads with Nasser about his Yemen policy or had been caught in smuggling and corruption, which Nasser finds even more embarrassing than a coup attempt.

In any case, there was no doubt about the military’s rising discontent over Nasser’s disastrous adventure in Yemen. Egypt has committed 70,000 troops to the Republican cause at a cost of $500,000 a day, a drain its sick economy can ill afford. Casualties have been high: an estimated 600 Egyptian soldiers were wounded last month. Even more demoralizing are the brutalities of the Saudi-supported Yemeni Royalists, who like to send captured Egyptian soldiers back to their camps with their ears and noses chopped off. For all its sacrifices in Yemen, Egypt still controls less than half of the country.

Threat from Islam. Despite growing opposition to his Yemen policy at home, Nasser is not about to pull out empty-handed after 3½ years of fighting. Yemen has become a microcosm of the whole Middle East struggle between Socialist and Conservative forces—a struggle that is not going at all well for Nasser. The latest blow was Saudi Arabia’s scheme for an anti-Nasser Islamic Alliance, which has rallied open support from Jordan, Tunisia and Iran, and tacit backing from Kuwait and Morocco. Nasser is also locked in a struggle with the Red Chinese, who are sharply extending their influence in Republican Yemen. Already Peking has reportedly sent some $45 million in aid, put 3,300 Chinese technicians to work for the Republican government, and is designing a technical training center that will accommodate 800 students.

Meantime, Yemen’s Royalist forces are just as determined. They recruit retired officers from France, Belgium, Britain, Pakistan, Iran and Jordan, receive arms and financial help from Saudi Arabia, Britain and Iran. Even the tiny Persian Gulf sheikdoms are unstinting. Recently, a Royalist Yemen emissary visited Sheik Shakhbut, ruler of Abu Dhabi on the Persian Gulf, and asked for a contribution of 5,000 pounds sterling. He walked away with £100,000. “You are all astonished?” the sheik shrugged to his advisers. “Do you know how many cases of ammunition £100,000 will buy, and how long they can keep Nasser from me?”