Word: imam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...conference to end the bloody (100,000 battle deaths) fighting between insurgent Republicans and Royalist mountain tribesmen was actually convened by the principal backers of the two factions. The Republicans are supported by 70,000 Egyptian troops; the Royalist forces of deposed Imam Badr are backed by arms and money from Saudi Arabia and Britain. In September after the war turned into a stalemate, Saudi Arabian King Feisal and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser negotiated an uneasy ceasefire. Nasser's expeditionary force costs $500,000 a day to maintain; both he and Feisal seem more eager than the Yemenis...
...that would help him save face back home in Cairo, but there was no compromise on basics. Nasser hoped but failed to win a guarantee of survival for the republic that he had backed in Yemen; in addition, he hoped but apparently failed to win agreement that Royalist Leader Imam Badr and his aides be barred from all future governments...
...government manned by a coalition of republicans and royalists, and 3) a promise of national elections. Nasser seemed ready to drop his long-insisted-upon title of the "Republic of Yemen" in favor of the "Islamic State of Yemen." But a major obstacle was Nasser's insistence that Imam Badr and his immediate family be banished in order to speed a reconciliation of the Yemeni factions. Yemen's royalists would hardly go along with that, though they might well agree to convert the Imamate into a purely religious institution without political power during the transition period leading...
...humiliating defeat for Egypt. An expeditionary force of some 50,000 Egyptian troops was not able to do the job. Neither was a series of palavers between delegates of the unstable republican regime of Abdullah Sallal and those of the royalist tribesmen fighting to restore Yemen's deposed Imam Badr...
...there was still no response from the royalist side. Undismayed, Noman continued his gentle pressure on the combatants, trying to establish some unity on the fractured republican side, holding out the carrot of Egyptian troop withdrawals to the royalists. As an added inducement to lure the Imam out of his cave and to the conference, Noman announced that he personally would head the republican delegation at Khamir-leaving the hated President Sallal behind...