Musallam bin Nufl (?-July 7, 2013), was a key insurgent leadership figure of the Dhofar Liberation Front (DLF) which was the main rebel force in Southern

Oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of t ...

in the 1960s. He was also a senior member of an influential and large Dhofari desert tribe known as the Bait Kathir (al Kathiri). In 1963 Musallam bin Nufl who had been a member of the Omani Sultan's household staff traveled to meet other Omani dissidents living in

Dammam Dammam ( ar, الدمّام ') is the fifth-most populous city in Saudi Arabia after Riyadh, Jeddah, Mecca, and Medina. It is the capital of the Eastern Province. With a total population of 1,252,523 as of 2020. The judicial and administrative ...

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

, who had twice failed to set up a separate Imamate in the north of the country. Bin Nufl and the DLF would commence guerrilla operations on his return from Iraq and Saudi Arabia later in 1963. The DLF though would wait till 1965 before declaring its intent although it would have to wait until the British withdrawal from neighboring

Aden Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...

in 1967 before receiving a further injection of support from the now avowed

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

People's Democratic Republic of Yemen South Yemen ( ar, اليمن الجنوبي, al-Yaman al-Janubiyy), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (, ), also referred to as Democratic Yemen (, ) or Yemen (Aden) (, ), was a communist state that existed from 1967 to 19 ...

. According to official reports in February 1966 Musallam bin Nufl was seriously injured whilst attempting smuggle arms from Saudi Arabia into Oman, the convoy that he was leading was interdicted by Omani armed forces and all vehicles destroyed. In 1968 a conference of senior leaders of the various liberation factions decided to opt for a more Marxist approach to achieving success against Western-backed royal families. Musallam bin Nufl and other key leaders of the DLF rejected the more Marxist regional anti-British cause, choosing to stick with there more narrow nationalist and separatist agenda in Dhofar. In fact once the highly conservative Sultan Said bin Taimur was replaced by his son Qaboos bin Said in 1970 many in the original DLF leadership group (including Musallam bin Nufl and

Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah ( ar, يوسف بن علوي بن عبد الله, born 1945) is an Omani politician. He was the Sultanate of Oman's Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs. It is important to clarify that "Ministers in Responsibilit ...

) allied themselves with new and more progressive Sultan; they reasoned that with the change in ruler in the Sultanate the DLF had achieved what it needed.Ibid. p152

Other Sources

Encyclopedia of the Stateless Nations: D–K – Dhofaris

Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in Yemen 1962-67

References

2013 deaths People from Salalah 20th-century Omani people {{Oman-bio-stub

See also

Other Sources

References