‘Operation Nutcracker’, launched on 4 January 1964, was by no means the first British military action against the peoples of the Radfan mountains in what was then the Western Aden Protectorate (now the Republic of Yemen). A perpetually autarchic thorn in the side of authorities both native and imperial, British expeditions had been planned against the Radfani tribes as far back as 1888, and the colonial authorities in Aden had intermittent resort to force in the Radfan throughout the period of imperial rule (Gavin 1975: 208 and, for instance, 227 or 299; Dresch 2000: 37-8).

The peoples of the Radfan constituted a number of independent tribes and families (groups both large and small, some feudally linked, others wholly autonomous). Most of these groups subsisted through a combination of agriculture and the (often forcible) collection of tithes and ‘tolls’ from travellers on the important north-south Dhala road, which had thus always been rather dangerous for travellers. Historically this road was one of the main arteries of South Arabian trade, running from Aden to Dhala, and onwards through the mountains to Yemen and Arabia; it had also been a main route of pilgrimage for Indians and South Asians making hajj. British air power had frequently been used to open the road and suppress the people of the area when their traditional depredations became too serious to tolerate.    

Many of the Radfani tribes – for instance the Qutaybis – effectively owed broader allegiance to no-one, and this made the standard British pacification policy of treaty-making problematic, particularly when the social structure of their societies did not provide any obvious or stable ‘headman’ figure. (Of the non-feudal Yafi tribes, bordering with the Radfani, Dresch writes that their ‘sultans’ were often of obscure kinds – ‘the Lower Yafi sultan was associated primarily with a sacred drum and the ability to make rain. To describe the importance of these persons in British terms of sovereignty was not possible’; ibid.: 38.)

The extension of administrative authority into the Protectorates had placed Radfan under the nominal control of the Amir of Dhala, who in fact had extremely limited influence, and whose supposed authority was felt as an insult, particularly by the populous Qutaybis. The Amir – ‘an ardent supporter of the British’ (Halliday 2002:195) – had been an early convert to the British-conceived ‘Federation of Arab Amirates of the South’: Dhala had joined immediately in 1959. As nationalist sentiment in South Arabia and Aden became more militant, the NLF (National Liberation Front for Occupied South Yemen) evidently saw a possible flashpoint developing which could be successfully exploited. The Qutaybis visited republican Yemen during 1963 and returned with arms; the NLF declared the beginning of armed struggle against the British in October, and the Qutaybi insurrection which began in the Radfan mountains during that month doubled as the first front of the NLF’s insurgency campaign (ibid; see also Dresch op. cit.: 97; Mawby 2005: 102).

‘Nutcracker’, launched from the forward airstrip at Thumier, aimed to put down the Qutaybis using a combination of Federal and British troops. It was initially conceived of as a ground operation. Under Brigadier J. D. Lunt, Commander of the Federal Regular Army, the initial aims were to assert Government control of Radfan, cow the Qutaybis, and open a road into the area at Wadi Rabwa. These aims appeared to be mostly achieved by the end of January 1964, at which point the Federal army partially withdrew to Thumier, and the clearly uncowed Qutaybi/NLF guerrillas immediately reoccupied all the vacated positions, renewed their attacks on the Dhala road and the remaining Federal forces, and destroyed the newly made road at Rabwa (Paget 1969:38-50)

A further ground attack was attempted in April, and a hastily assembled force (‘Radforce’) was tasked to ‘end the operations of dissidents in the defined area’ – a  vague aim, given the largely unknown forces at work and the poorly defined ‘area’ in question (ibid.: 55). The political directive that accompanied this military instruction was clearer, but could have been issued in identical form a hundred years previously:

'To bring sufficient pressure to bear on the Radfan tribes:

a) to prevent the tribal revolt from spreading

b) to reassert our authority

c) to stop attacks on the Dhala road' (ibid.).

These ground operations were also of dubious success, and suffered from poor logistical planning. They also included several notable disasters, including the decapitation of two SAS men (and possibly the display of their heads in the Yemen; ibid: 62-75). The British quickly fell back on air power, deployed from the Khormaksar airfield at Aden – helicopters to shuttle men and equipment back and forth from forward positions, and Hawker Hunter jets in support of ground troops.

From May, air power was used in a manner redolent of traditional colonial air policing. After obtaining Cabinet-level authorisation, Aden’s High Commissioner Sir Gerald Kennedy Trevaskis ordered that a severely punitive campaign be waged against the inhabitants of Radfan. Villages in ‘proscribed areas’ (i.e. areas which had not surrendered) were leafleted from the air with instructions that the population should leave: after this measure had been taken, Federal troops were to attack the villages and anyone remaining in them (similar methods – leaflets advising evacuation, followed by bombing raids on civilian areas – had been used in the Protectorate areas back in the 1930s, and air policing in general had been used in Aden’s hinterland as far back as the early 1920s; Omissi writes that in September 1937, ‘some villages were bombed after their inhabitants had levied blackmail from traffic on the Aden to Yemen motor road’, i.e. almost certainly the Qutaybi tribes of the Dhala road/Radfan area. See Omissi 1990: 50-2, and 159-60). Troops were ordered to destroy grain, crops, fodder and livestock (this during the spring crop-sowing season). By mid-May the campaign had been stepped up, and the RAF had been ordered to ‘attack all signs of movement in proscribed areas, shoot up settlements and cause damage to property’ (Mawby op. cit. 104). Much of the initially targeted area was suppressed by August, but unrest in the mountains was widespread, and NLF activity and mobilisation was increasing. The British would remain fighting in Aden’s hinterland almost until the final withdrawal from the colony; Paget records that British and Federal troops were still being attacked in the Dhala road area at the start of 1967 (Paget op. cit. 187-8).