North Yemen Civil War | |||||||
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Part of the Arab Cold War | |||||||
Royalist Yemeni forces try to repel an Egyptian armored attack |
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of Yemen Saudi Arabia Supported by: Jordan United Kingdom |
Supported by: Soviet Union |
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Muhammad al-Badr Al-Hassan Bin Yahya Abdurrahman Bin Yahya Muhammad Bin Al-Hussain Abdullah Bin Al-Hassan Faisal bin Abdulaziz |
Abdullah as-Sallal Gamal Abdel Nasser Abdel Hakim Amer |
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Strength | |||||||
20,000 semi-regulars (1965) 200,000 tribesmen (1965) Hundreds of mercenaries financed by United Kingdom |
3,000 soldiers (1964) 70,000 soldiers (1965) |
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
1,000 dead | 26,000 dead | ||||||
100,000–200,000 killed |
Republican victory
The North Yemen Civil War (Arabic: ثورة 26 سبتمبر) was fought in North Yemen from 1962 to 1970 between royalist partisans of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom and supporters of the Yemen Arab Republic. The war began with a coup d'état carried out in 1962 by revolutionary republicans led by the army under the command of Abdullah as-Sallal, who dethroned the newly crowned Imam Muhammad al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic under his presidency. The Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border where he rallied popular support from northern Shia tribes to retake power, escalating shortly to a full-scale civil war.
On the royalist side Jordan and Saudi Arabia supplied military aid, and Britain gave covert support, while the republicans were supported by Egypt and were supplied warplanes from the Soviet Union. Both foreign irregular and conventional forces were involved. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser supported the republicans with as many as 70,000 Egyptian troops and weapons. Despite several military actions and peace conferences, the war sank into a stalemate by the mid-1960s.