The 1970 Omani coup d'état was the overthrow of
Sultan of Oman Said bin Taimur by his son
Qaboos bin Said in
Oman
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...
on 23 July 1970. Occurring in the midst of the
Dhofar War, the
palace coup was executed with the British and saw Said deposed and sent into exile to the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The coup was a pivotal moment in modern Omani history as Qaboos swiftly set in motion numerous wide-ranging modernisation reforms in the sultanate, transforming Oman from an underdeveloped backwater into a country on par with many
Western states in terms of political stability and economic development. At the time of his death in January 2020, Sultan Qaboos was the
longest-serving ruler in the
Middle East
The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq.
The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...
.
Background
Beginning at the end of the 19th century, Oman gradually came under the influence of the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
through a series of treaties and diplomatic arrangements. Eventually, the Omani Sultan became increasingly reliant on Britain for support and advice. The Sultanate's primary sources of revenue, notably the
slave trade and
arms dealing, were prohibited by the British, resulting in confrontations between the Omani authorities and tribesmen in the country's interior. These confrontations led to Oman seeking military support from the British who agreed to defend Sultan
Faisal bin Turki from attempts at overthrowing him.
In 1913, Sultan
Taimur bin Feisal took the reins of Oman and brought back the kingdom to a more stable financial footing and quelled tribal unrest in the country.
He ruled until his abdication in 1932 at which point his eldest son,
Said bin Taimur, took over as Sultan. Under Said's rule, Oman became increasingly
isolationist and underdeveloped. Internal unrest flourished such as in the case of the
Jebel Akhdar and
Dhofar wars. Said became increasingly reliant on the British to maintain control in his own country, which he refused to rule in a modern manner, at one point refusing to even leave his palace after an assassination attempt. The Dhofar War was a
communist insurgency launched in 1963 and had gripped the country since then, pitting British-led Omani troops against the insurgents primarily in the southern part of the country.
The
Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF) were under ''de facto'' British command. British Colonel
Hugh Oldman commanded the Sultan's troops in
Muscat, while Brigadier
John Graham was the overall commander of the SAF.
By 1970, all of the country's only major source of revenue,
petrodollars, was either going to fighting insurgents or directly into the sultan's coffers.
Said's poor leadership of the country and over-reliance on British military support aggravated the
British government, who began to view his deposition as the only viable way to defeating Oman's growing communist insurgency.
British officials contacted the Sultan's 29-year-old son,
Qaboos bin Said, a graduate of the British
Sandhurst military academy who was under
house arrest per his father's orders.
Cassette tapes with voice messages were sent to Qaboos, informing him of the plan the United Kingdom was concocting to topple his father. Qaboos agreed and the operation proceeded.
Coup
On 23 July 1970, British-led military units were being put into position to topple the Sultan. Graham convened the top Arab commanders of the Desert Regiment, the main Omani unit that would carry out the coup, and informed them of the letter sent to them by Qaboos which "commanded" the British officers to carry out the coup. The meeting secured their loyalty and cooperation.
The troops arrived at the Al Hosn Palace in
Salalah and were met with no resistance. The tribal
sheikh of the five hundred guardsmen entrusted to defend the palace's exterior had been persuaded by the British to order his men to stand down prior to the coup. The remainder of the coup was carried out predominantly by
Arab troops in order to mask the extent of the involvement of the British in the operation. During the coup, the Sultan shot Sheikh Braik Al Ghafri, a coup plotter and son of a prominent Omani governor in the stomach before accidentally shooting himself in the foot as he cocked his pistol. Said managed to briefly escape with a few confidantes and bodyguards down a series of hidden passageways and tunnels but was recaptured quickly. The wounded sultan urged his adviser to send an urgent message to Oldman informing him of the events that had transpired, which Oldman being a coup planner ignored.
The coup ended when Said signed a document of abdication, handing over the reins of the country to his son, Qaboos. Said was flown out of the country on an
RAF Bristol Britannia, first to
Bahrain
Bahrain, officially the Kingdom of Bahrain, is an island country in West Asia. Situated on the Persian Gulf, it comprises a small archipelago of 50 natural islands and an additional 33 artificial islands, centered on Bahrain Island, which mak ...
for medical treatment and then on to
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
where he lived the remaining two years of his life in a suite in
The Dorchester, a luxury hotel.
Aftermath
Qaboos, now the new Sultan, immediately set on his priorities of modernizing the country and defeating the insurgency in the newly renamed
Sultanate of Oman's interior. Prior to taking the throne, Oman had no
secondary school
A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., b ...
s, only one
hospital
A hospital is a healthcare institution providing patient treatment with specialized Medical Science, health science and auxiliary healthcare staff and medical equipment. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which typically ...
, and a total of of paved roads.
He redirected the country's oil revenue to economic initiatives, moving the country away from
subsistence farming and
fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...
, and building modern infrastructure. Schools were built, the country was electrified, numerous roads were paved, and
Western media ceased labelling the country as "medieval".
Slavery in Oman was abolished, and by 1980, Oman had 28 hospitals, 363 schools, and of paved roads.
In addition, the
Majlis Al-Shura was established with the power to review legislation and call government ministers to meet with them.
The success of the
Dhofar War which was proving to be a formidable challenge for the state was reversed with the removal of Taimur. Qaboos launched a concerted £400 million effort to modernize the Omani military, even founding
a navy to protect the country's oil exports. The communist rebels gradually lost their foreign support from the
Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
and
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
after a string of military defeats. This, coupled with mounting international opposition to the rebellion including the deployment of
Iranian troops in 1973 led to a final defeat of the rebels in 1976.
Internal unrest in Oman successfully ended owing to an initiative by Qaboos to include all ethnic and tribal groups into the administration of the country and granting
amnesty for former rebels.
The involvement of the
British government as a whole in the coup was denied for forty years with the official government narrative being the coup was carried out predominantly by Arab troops with their British commanders taking part on personal initiative. In truth, the coup had been planned by
MI6, the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* United ...
, and the
Ministry of Defence and given the go-ahead by
prime minister Edward Heath.
Contingency planning of the event showed that Qaboos would have been kept under the protection of British troops then flown out of the country should the coup have failed.
References
{{Oman topics, state=collapsed
1970
1970s coups d'état and coup attempts
July 1970 in Asia
1970 in Oman
Oman–United Kingdom relations