Battle for Buraimi

Ninety miles inland from the Persian Gulf, the oasis of Buraimi has slumbered for centuries. Its 8,000 inhabitants subsist on dates, camel meat and milk, and live in eight, mud-walled villages scorched by the gusts of the shamal. No one knows for certain to whom Buraimi belongs. Northward lies Trucial Oman, "protected" by the British; westward lies Saudi Arabia; all around is uncharted waste, so desolate that even the Arabs call it Rub al Khali, the Empty Quarter.

Over the centuries many marauders have come--the rulers of Oman, of Abu Dhabi, the Unitarians of Nejd (ancestors of modern Saudi Arabia)--briefly planted flags, then vanished. In 1869 the Trucial sheiks drove off the last of the Saudi tax collectors. Most conscientious modern geographers simply label Buraimi "undefined." It is a land of shifting sands, shifting tribes and shifting allegiances.

Underground Wants. Forgotten Buraimi is suddenly a land remembered. Reason: oil, seemingly everywhere under the crust of the Arab peninsula. So far, none has been found within 300 miles. But each side wants to stake its claim.

Last August a camel caravan lumbered into Buraimi bearing 40 Saudi officials, clerks and armed men headed by a doughty Arabian named Emir Turki Ibn Utaishan. They started wooing the bewildered inhabitants and chiefs with lavish feasts, silver riyals and sweet talk. Immediately, the Trucial Sheik of Abu Dhabi and the Sultan of Muscat appealed to their "protector" Great Britain to repel the "invaders."

Britain obliged; a thin red line of British-officered Oman levies marched up and set up camel-hair tents encircling the oasis; London sent a note demanding Turki's withdrawal. At this point, Washington, the perennial "third party" in the Middle East, stepped in, negotiated a secret "standstill" agreement. It lasted barely a few months: soon Saudi Arabia denounced Britain's "provocative actions" and Britain announced "complete freedom of action."

Palmorston Style. Fed up with the past humiliations in Iran and Egypt, the British were putting on a fine old-fashioned Palmerstonian display of Empire. R.A.F. fighters buzzed up and down the 750-mile-long camel tracks running into Saudi Arabia, searching out reinforcements bound for Turki. Jeep-borne Oman levies roamed everywhere, terrifying camel caravans. From a 40-foot-high Beau Geste-like tower of mud-brick reinforced with palm logs--containing storerooms for food, water and ammunition, and slotted for rifles--a young British major named Peter MacDonald was happily running the show.

In Riyadh, old King Ibn Saud, the invalid Lord of the Desert, fumed in his wheelchair. An Arab League official who called on him to discuss burning questions of Israel and Middle East defense could not get him off the subject of perfidious Albion.

So far, not a shot has been fired. In bleak, besieged Buraimi, Turki still holds out; he has 800 bags of rice, enough for many meals. Around him circle a busy band of British. Happiest of all are the local sheiks. They figure that all this excitement means oil. One of them has already decided how to spend his first oil royalty check--on a fancy new airplane.

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