It's No Eden

Though some scholars maintain that the Garden of Eden was in Aden, the country today seems more like purgatory than paradise. A British protectorate since 1839, Aden is a sun-scorched moonscape of thrusting volcanic mountains and rock-strewn wadies. Temperatures commonly rise to 110, and survival rations for British combat troops there include at least two gallons of water daily--for drinking, not washing. Aden is a tempting prize nonetheless. In a determined attempt to defend it from guerrilla bands sweeping across from Yemen, Britain last week airlifted hundreds of seasoned troops there.

Britain's last, vital bastion in the Middle East, Aden is the cornerstone on which Whitehall aims to build a stable Federation of South Arabia from more than a dozen disparate sultanates, sheikdoms and emirates along the nether rim of the Arabian peninsula. With easy access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, Aden is also the major staging post and bunkering station in the area and a key base for the defense of sources that supply Britain with an annual half-billion dollars worth of oil. Not surprisingly, Egypt's President Nasser would also like to "liberate" Aden. With 40,000 troops in Yemen supporting the rebels who deposed the despotic Imam Mohammed el Badr in September 1962--Nasser's force has actually grown by some 12,000 since he agreed a year ago to begin withdrawing his troops--he has been turning more and more heat on the British outpost.

Foul. For months, Aden has been under sporadic attack by some 500 to 1,000 dissident border tribesmen known as the Red Wolves of Radfan. Primed with arms and ammunition from Egyptian caches in Yemen, they have been harassing the key trade route between Dhala and Aden. Half the federation's 4,000-man, British-officered army was assigned to end the "state of revolt" last January. By March, frustrated by rebel strikes from Yemen as well, the British bombed the Yemeni fortress of Harib after warning civilians to clear out, earning a sharp rebuke from the U.N. Security Council.

Last week it was Britain's turn to cry foul. At a press conference in Aden, Major General J. H. Cubbon, commander of Britain's Middle East land forces, said he had "reliable information" that two British soldiers had been killed in an ambush and decapitated. Their heads, he said, were then paraded around the Yemeni town of Taiz on stakes. The report was later discounted by U.S. diplomats in Taiz. Nonetheless, as the Laborite Daily Herald noted, the two soldiers "were killed--and they were killed in a war which drags on with no end in sight."

Trapped. It was an ugly, bloody little war at that. One day last week, seeking to root the Red Wolves out of their mountain redoubts, 120 British paratroopers attacked the mud-walled town of El Naqiil at dawn with fixed bayonets. The rebels scampered up the slopes, dug in, and with deadly sniper fire pinned the paratroopers to the ground in shimmering heat. Twelve hours later, at dusk, the British finally broke out of the trap and routed the rebels, killing twelve. Two Britons died.

In the House of Commons, Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home impatiently rejected Opposition charges that the Aden conflict was the government's fault: "The situation in the Middle East does not depend on British good will alone," he said. "There must be some reciprocity. We have seen precious little of this up to now, I must say." Assuming that none would be forthcoming, Britain beefed up its forces in Aden with strategic reserves from Kenya, put the Lancashire Fusiliers on 24-hour alert in England. If still more muscle is needed, warned Sir Alec, "troops will be moved from Germany."

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