Wilson's War in the Gulf

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In 1970 the British installed the Sandhurst trained Sultan Qaboos as ruler of Oman, which, standing on the south west corner of the Arabian peninsular, is at the entrance to the Gulf - the source of more than a third of all the world's oil supplies.

The British airbase on the offshore island of Masirah is also available for the use of US military aricraft, according to Oman's foreign minister. In return for this facility the US has provided anti-tank missiles for use against the struggles of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman.

BRITISH-LED

But the Sultan is not facing the FP LO single handed. His armed forces, quadrupled to 15,000 in the last five years, are led by more than 400 British officers - two of, whom were killed in fighting • earlier this year.

Major General Kenneth Perkins and Brigadier John Akehurst, of the British Army, are in command, with the full authorisation of Britain's Labour government. A report in the Times admitted that:

"Britain remains the dominant foreign presence in both military and civil matters. Several of the government ministries have British advisors."

As the Sultan himself put it:

"relations couldn't be better. We couldn't be closer to each other. Here we are accustomed to British faces in our army, in our training, and so on."

FICTION But to maintain the fictio independence he insists that:

«There is a difference bet» colonisation and saying, I am here if you need my advice."

It is not clear whether Sultan needed any advice on the selection of Arab and Pakistani horses for his well stocked stables, or on the building of a new palace in Muscat, the reconstruction of the old palace at Sulalah, and the building of a new residence for himself just outside that city.

INTERESTS

However, Wimpey and Taylor Woodrow both seem to have extensive interests in Oman. But as the world economic crisis has led to cutbacks in civil development, the Sultan has equipped himself not only with a 30 million dollar yacht and Hitler's old Bavarian residence, but also with the latest British Jaguar military aircraft and Rapier missiles.

The war against the FPLO has Iecently «been stepped up, with the bombing last month of Hauf, inside the border of S. Yemen -which supports the liberation movement.

Most fighting is in Dhofar, at the west of Oman, but the Sultan is not able to secure the road from Sulalah to Muscat through the central region of the country, and fear of ambushes forces supplies to Dhofar to be airlifted.

Jordanian troops are also active in support of the Sultan's regime, but the US Phantoms used in the attacks on Hauf belong to the Iranian Air Force.

An FPLO spokesman estimated that there are 15,000 Iranians in Oman supporting the Sultan against what the Shah describes as "communism and atheism"

SECRET

While the FPLO promises to continue the war unti all foreign intervention is eliminated, the British Labour government continues to ignore last year's request by 84 Labour MPs to withdraw from this imperialist war which it helps along as secretly as it can.