ISRAEL'S INTERFERENCE IN YEMEN’S CIVIL WAR, 1964-1966
Imam Ahmad died on September 18, 1962, and was succeeded by his son, Muhammad al-Badr. Several Egyptian officers, as well as some of his own, were plotting against him. On September 26 al-Badr was overthrown by the plotters. The Saudis argued that Nasser wanted their oil fields and was hoping to use Yemen as a springboard for revolt in the rest of the Arabian peninsula. Britain considered the Egyptian invasion a real threat and used the services of a private company belonging to Colonel D. Stirling, founder of the Special Air Service (SAS), who recruited former SAS men as advisors to the royalists. The British mercenary leader J. Johnson flew to Teheran to try to persuade the Iranians to do an air drop. The MP N. McLean flew to Tel-Aviv to meet M. Dayan, defense minister, and M. Amit, head of Mossad. T. Boyle met with IAF commander E. Weizman and his officers. It was decided that the airdrops would be made. The airlifts were originally codenamed "Operation Gravy". The first flight took off in March 1964 from Tel-Nof Airbase. During the sixth flight, Boyle suggested that the IAF aircraft would also be used to bomb San'a. Weizman supported the idea, but the IDF Chief of Staff Y. Rabin and Israeli Prime Minister, L. Eshkol, denied him. The operations went on over a period of two years, during which the aircraft carried out 14 nighttime sorties.