Aden Emergency
| Aden Emergency | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Cold War, the Arab Cold War, and the decolonization of Asia | ||||||||
British soldiers crackdown protests by tear gas | ||||||||
| ||||||||
| Belligerents | ||||||||
| NLF |
FLOSY Supported by: United Arab Republic | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
|
Harold Wilson Michael Le Fanu Michael Beetham Colin Campbell Mitchell |
Qahtan al-Shaabi Jarallah Omar |
Abdullah al-Asnag Gamal Abdel Nasser | ||||||
| Units involved | ||||||||
|
Federal Regular Army Hadhrami Bedouin Legion | Guerrilla fighters | |||||||
| Strength | ||||||||
|
30,000 at peak (3,500 in November 1967) 15,000 federal troops | 26,000 fighters | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
|
British Army: 90–92 killed 510 wounded Federal Regular Army: 17 killed 58 wounded |
382 killed 1,714 wounded | |||||||
| Total: 2,096 casualties | ||||||||
The Aden Emergency, also known as the 14 October Revolution (Arabic: ثورة 14 أكتوبر, romanized: Thawrat 14 ʾUktūbar, lit. '14th October Revolution') or as the Radfan Uprising, was an armed rebellion by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against the Federation of South Arabia, a British Protectorate of the United Kingdom, which led to the proclamation of the People's Republic of South Yemen.
Partly inspired by Gamal Abdel Nasser's pan-Arab nationalism, it began on 14 October 1963 with the throwing of a grenade at a gathering of British officials at Aden Airport. A state of emergency was then declared in the British Crown colony of Aden and its hinterland, the Aden Protectorate. The emergency escalated in 1967 and hastened the end of British rule in the territory which had begun in 1839.