A 1962 coup in Yemen triggered a brutal civil war and a regional proxy conflict.
When Yemeni revolutionaries overthrew their Imam in 1962, they ignited a conflict that drew in global powers. Egypt poured 70,000 troops into the desert to support the new republic, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan backed the royalists. The war became a disastrous quagmire, often compared to the Vietnam War.
The North Yemen civil war began in September 1962, when Colonel Abdullah al-Sallal led a military coup against the newly crowned Imam Muhammad al-Badr. The revolutionaries declared a republic and abolished slavery, but the deposed Imam escaped to the Saudi Arabian border. There, he rallied northern Zaydi tribes, transforming a sudden political takeover into a protracted, full-scale civil war that lasted until 1970.
The conflict quickly escalated into a proxy battle for regional dominance. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, seeking to bolster his standing as an Arab nationalist, deployed as many as 70,000 troops to support the republicans. In response, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Israel provided military aid to the royalists, while Britain offered covert support. The Soviet Union supplied warplanes to the republican forces, and Nikita Khrushchev famously declared that any aggression against the new Yemeni republic would be treated as an attack on the Soviet Union itself.
By the mid-1960s, the war had devolved into a stalemate. The immense strain of the Yemeni campaign is widely believed to have hampered Egypt's military readiness during the June 1967 Six-Day War. Following that defeat, Nasser began withdrawing his forces. The conflict shifted internally, marked by the 1967 siege of Sana'a, which served as a critical turning point. Although the royalists eventually lifted the siege in February 1968, fighting persisted until 1970, when Saudi Arabia finally recognized the Republic and a ceasefire was established.
The revolution was also marred by internal violence. In the early days, revolutionary leaders carried out numerous summary executions of former officials and members of the Hamid al-Din family. These actions, often conducted without trial, drew sharp criticism from within the republican ranks, including from future president Abdul Rahman al-Eryani. Critics argued that the bloodshed alienated potential supporters and fueled the royalist cause, illustrating the volatile and often brutal nature of the power struggle.
Source: North Yemen civil war
