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This article examines a hitherto obscure aspect of the conflict in Dhofar, Oman (1963-76), the Anglo-Omani covert operation (Operation Dhib) to send Mahra tribesmen to conduct cross-border raids into South Yemen during the early 1970s. Using declassified British government papers, this article outlines the origins of Operation Dhib, and the contrasting objectives of the Sultanate of Oman and the United Kingdom in instigating and sponsoring this covert action.
The war in Dhofar, Oman, between 1963 and 1976, which pitted the insurgents of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) against the monarchical regime, has received renewed scholarly attention, thanks in part to the declassification of papers from the archives of the Sultanate's principal Western ally, the United Kingdom.1 The fact that the PFLO's principal source of external assistance was the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY, otherwise known as South Yemen) is well-established in the historical record,2 while in contrast covert action conducted by the Omani royal government and its British allies has received scanty coverage, aside from a few references in secondary source literature.3 However, declassified material from British government archives, notably from the Ministry of Defence (MOD), demonstrates that both the UK and Oman raised and trained groups of exiled Mahra tribesmen - exiled from the PDRY - to launch cross-border raids into South Yemen between late 1972 and early 1975.
Covert action can be defined as clandestine activity conducted by a government to influence political, economic, and strategic conditions in a foreign country, in which the former's involvement is intended to be both concealed and plausibly deniable. Proxy warfare - defined here as a country's use of non-state paramilitary groups either as a supplementary means of waging war or as a substitute for overt use of force against an adversary - can be classified as a type of covert operation, being carried out by states either as a means of coercing an adversary, dismphng the latter militarily, or indeed for a transformative objective such as regime change in, the promotion of separatism within, or the annexation of a territory from a state subjected to proxy attack.4 As Andrew Rathmell observes, covert operations and proxy warfare have been characteristics of Middle Eastern politics since the mid-20th century, with Arab regimes...