User:Leefeni de Karik/sandbox/2

Background

British policy

Upon entering office in June 1970, the Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath immediately set about trying to reverse Wilson's policy of ending Britain's military presence East of Suez.

In the years leading up to Operation Intradon, the UK officials were focused on maintaining control of global oil supply routes. This led to the displacement of the Chagossians and the handover of land to a pro-Western dictator. Operation Intradon was carried out in Musandam, a mountainous peninsula that overlooks the Strait of Hormuz. The Shihuh, Musandam's main tribe, resented outside interference and effectively regarded themselves as independent despite living at a crossroads of the global economy as important as the Suez or Panama canals.

In 1930, the Royal Navy bombarded Musandam “to compel the surrender” of a local Sheikh. Any foreign authority over the peninsula had lapsed by November 1970, and Whitehall feared it may become the base for a “potential insurrection”. The then Conservative foreign secretary, Alec Douglas-Home, believed that some 70 communist guerrillas from elsewhere in the Gulf were hiding in Musandam and using its relative isolation to hatch plots against British interests in the region.

These dissidents were believed to be part of the National Democratic Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arabian Gulf (NDFLOAG), a left-wing Arab nationalist movement run by Omanis with cells across the region. Their goal was to expel foreign powers from the Gulf. Files found at the UK National Archives show the chief of the defence staff fretted that these dissidents could unleash “an anti-British campaign of terror”.