96- Rafal Gan-Ganowicz. Polish Hero Of Yemen

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external communication.A Coup D’étatBadr, residing in Sana’a, did not obviously have the political craftiness of his father and he did notfigure out that at the same time four plots were organised against his rule. Two of them grew in themilitary forces: the first one was commanded by captain Ali Abdul al Moghny and the other one – bycolonel Sallal. These were the typical officers’ conspiracies. The third plot was organised by themembers of the tribal group – the Hashid – who were trying to take their revenge for executing – onthe order of Ahmad – their charismatic sheik and his son. The fourth plot was prepared by theyounger sons of the clan elders who were simply trying to provide themselves with various benefitsby means of placing someone from their generation on the throne. It seems that the only personfamiliar with this network of intrigues was the Egyptian chargé d'affaires – Abdul Wahad. He actedon the basis of the confidential instructions telling to support the other groups supporting Egypt inthe Yemen Pan-Arabian opposition.The Egyptian was afraid that the conspirators would not have enough will, courage anddetermination in order to carry out the coup d’état and therefore then he became involved in theamazingly complex conflict. Twenty four hours before the planned putsch, he informed Badr that thearmy was planning an action against him. The next step was to inform the conspirators that theirintentions had been discovered and that only outdistancing the action of the forces faithful to themonarch could save them from arresting. In this way, “the die was cast”.Sallal and other plotters were in essence deprived by the Egyptian intrigue of any room formanoeuvre. On the morning of September 25, the colonel put the students of Military Academy intobattle readiness. In this academy the influences of conspirators were particularly strong and that iswhy the colonel attempted to inform the other members of officer conspiracies of the beginning ofthe action. However, captain Moghny, another officer involved in the intrigue and the commandingofficer of the armoured division stationed in Sana’a, acted faster. The main objects of the assassins’actions were typical of the situation – they intended to capture the Badr’s seat, the arsenal, the policeheadquarters, the building of the ministry of foreign affairs, the radio station, the telephone centraloffice and the airport as soon as possible.On September 25, around 09.00 Moghny started his “revolution”, leading 13 tanks, sixarmoured cars, two self-propelled guns and two towed anti-tank heavy guns onto the imam’s palace.Around 10.30 Badr heard the rattle of the armoured tanks and started to blindly fire a machine gunthrough the window of his palace. The plotters opened fire several dozen minutes later when the2
attempts at urging the palace guard to leave the ruler ended in a fiasco. The fight for the Badr’spalace lasted almost twenty four hours.The Egyptian interventionBadr, along with his faithful servants, managed to escape from the palace through the adjacentgarden. There was only one way of the escape for the overthrown imam – to Saudi Arabia. In themeantime, on September 28 colonel Sallal, who headed the Revolutionary Command Council,announced to the tribe chiefs gathered in the capital city that Badr had been killed. In practice, itmeant the death penalty for the imam. On September 29, a personal emissary of Nasser – general AliAbdul Hameed – arrived in Yemen with the task of becoming familiarised with the local situation.Sallal immediately asked him to send the Egyptian soldiers since the officers incited to rebellionclearly did not trust their subordinates. Cairo took a positive position to this request. Already onOctober 05, the first subunits of the Egyptian special-purpose battalion arrived in Hodeidah. Thecommandoes took responsibility for the personal protection of Sallal and other prominent figures ofthe new regime.Taking over power in the country by the officers regarded as Nasserists did not bring aboutcommon enthusiasm. The conservative tribe elders, despite the fact that they were frequently inconflict with the imam, were of the – fully justified – opinion that the monarchy was a lesser threatto their power than the military radicals. Saudi Arabia – a great neighbour of Yemen – whose rulersdid not intend to accept the centre of Pan-Arabism in the vicinity of their borders – was alsointerested in the failure of the coup d’état. The common interests of the Saudi Arabians and theYemen monarchists (in spite of the fact that the former were orthodox Sunnis whereas the latter –“Zaydi heretics”) could not have been not consummated in such a situation. Already betweenOctober 02 and October 08, the tribes from north-western Yemen received at least four air transportsof weapons from Saudi Arabia. The army of the Saudi Arabians occupied at the same time thepositions along the border with the southern neighbour. This, in turn, triggered off the reinforcementof the Egyptian contingent in Yemen: after the first battalion, the other came; in a short period oftime, there were as many as 18 000 Egyptian soldiers in Yemen.The arrival of the Egyptian army in Yemen and locating the Saudi Arabian army along theborder as well as the support the monarchists received from Riyadh led to the increase in tension inthe whole area especially because the Yemen royalists (known as malakhi from the word malekhmeaning “a king”) started with great intensity the activities against the Egyptians.The success of the guerrillas totally depended on the Saudi Arabian support. Many officers3
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96- Rafal Gan-Ganowicz. Polish Hero Of Yemen

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