Jordanian Civil War
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Map of Jordan
| date | September 16, 1970 - July 19, 1971 |
|---|---|
| place | Jordan |
| Casus Belli | Palestinian attempted assassination attempt on King Hussein I of Jordan |
| output | Jordanian victory, expulsion of the PLO |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| losses | |
|
40,000 (PLO) |
82 |
;_Flag_of_Syria_(1963%E2%80%931972).svg){kind=small}
As the Jordanian Civil War (in Palestinian parlance often Black September , Arabic أيلول الأسود, DMG Ailūl al-aswad ) refers to the violent clashes 1970–1971 between Jordanian security and armed forces on the one hand and Palestinian guerrillas and Syrian troops on the other. The fighting ended with the displacement of the Palestinian organizations from Jordan.
background
After the Six Day War in 1967, the relationship between the member organizations of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Jordanian royal family deteriorated significantly. The Jordanian defeat in the war and the loss of the West Bank resulted in the loss of face of the state among many Palestinians. The Jordanian government saw the attacks on Israeli territory, which it had not agreed with, as a violation of its sovereignty. So the Battle of Karame led to a rift between the two sides. The Palestinian side had around 100,000 armed fighters in Jordan, and its ruling class saw the kingdom's majority of Palestinian people as a potential power base to control the state. For example, Palestinian militias ousted Jordanian security forces from the refugee camps and several cities. Likewise, the guerrillas demonstratively did not submit to any control by the Jordanian military . In October the Jordanian military crushed the Palestinian organization an-Nasr (The Victory), which had fought a gun battle with the police. There was also the collection of money from the population, sometimes by force of arms. Attempts by the Jordanian governments to restrict unannounced weapons storage and public carrying of weapons were rejected by the PLO in protest.
In June 1970, the Amman Intelligence Center was attacked by Palestinian radicals and King Hussein narrowly escaped assassination. On the same day, units of the Jordanian army bombed two refugee camps with artillery. The troops were ordered back on King Hussein's orders. Hussein and Yasser Arafat issued a statement that the fighting should end. However, the Marxist-Leninist organization PFLP occupied two hotels in Amman and took civilians there hostage. As a demand they made the dismissal of government officials, cabinet members and members of the military who they disliked. Arafat joined these demands despite his previous assurances. With the intention of calming the domestic political situation, King Hussein agreed to the demands. In September 1970, the hijacking of five passenger planes and 435 - mostly Western - civilians by the PFLP, which rejected the armistice between Hussein and Arafat, caused further provocation. Yasser Arafat publicly welcomed the action and thus snubbed the royal family. Meanwhile, it came in Irbid , Zarqa and Ma'an armed clashes between Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian military. On September 16, Palestinian militants proclaimed a people's government in Irbid , openly challenging the legitimacy of the royal family. The following night, King Hussein proclaimed martial law and handed executive control to a military cabinet under the Palestinian officer Muhammad Daoud . Habas al-Madjali was also appointed Chief of Staff of the armed forces. The king gave the army the political signal to take action against the militant Palestinian groups.
Course of the fighting
Balance of power
The Jordanian armed forces consisted of around 70,000 soldiers and the army had three armored and one mechanized brigades . These were equipped with modern US-American tanks of the types M60 and older British Centurion L7s . The Jordanian Air Force had 32 Hawker Hunter aircraft and 18 Lockheed F-104 aircraft . The PLO had around 25,000 soldiers and 76,000 militiamen at its disposal, but no heavy weapons. They had also only completed rudimentary military training and were inadequately organized.
The PLO controlled large parts of the capital Amman. The strongholds there were the local refugee camps. Some cities in the north of the country were also under Palestinian control. The Jordanian General Staff had scheduled a two-day operation by their mechanized and armored forces to crush the Palestinian guerrillas.
There were also 17,000 Iraqi soldiers with 200 tanks in the country as part of the Arab solidarity with Israel. After the fighting broke out, the units were subordinated to Vice President Hardan al-Tikriti and remained strictly neutral in the conflict despite public statements to the contrary in the Iraqi media.
Failure of the Jordanian offensive
According to the Jordanian military's two-day plan, the focus of the conflict should be on securing the capital, Amman. The 1st Infantry Division was supposed to advance into the center via the lightly built-up southern part of the city. The old town was to be conquered by the 4th Mechanized Brigade and the 60th Tank Brigade . The northern part of the country, including the strategically important cities of Irbid, Adschlun and ar-Ramtha, was to be secured by the 2nd Infantry Division and the 40th Tank Brigade . The operations should begin simultaneously on September 17th. The mechanized units got stuck in the old town on the second day of the fight and suffered heavy losses from militiamen equipped with RPGs in the difficult terrain for armored units . The offensive in the south of the city also had to be stopped after minor gains in land. The northern offensive started with a time lag, whereupon the Palestinians took the initiative and started fighting first. As a result, the northern offensive failed to achieve any of its objectives. At the same time, the army was facing an internal crisis, as around 5,000 soldiers and officers deserted or defected to the Palestinians. Even in the army leadership there was tension. The commander of the 2nd Infantry Division resigned from his post on the third day of the fight, presumably out of sympathy with the PLO.
Syrian intervention
By September 20, Syria dispatched the 5th Infantry Division and three tank brigades with a total of 16,000 soldiers and, depending on the source, between 200 and 300 T-55 battle tanks to the north of the country. The troops wore uniforms of the Palestinian Liberation Army , which led the Jordanian leadership to assume limited Syrian participation. First of all, the Syrian-Palestinian troops succeeded in pushing back the 40th Jordanian tank brigade in a battle near ar-Ramtha, thus opening the way to Irbid. The Syrians lost 10 T-55 tanks and the Jordanians 19 Centurions . On September 22nd, the Jordanian leadership around King Hussein decided to launch a massive air strike by the Jordanian Air Force . The air force flew around 200 to 250 ground attacks against the Syrian armed forces and destroyed around 120 main battle tanks and armored vehicles. As a result, the Syrian troops withdrew across the border the following day. The former air force commander in chief and acting Syrian defense minister Hafiz al-Assad deliberately withheld the air force because the invasion had originated from his political rival Salah Jadid .
During the fighting there were Israeli air force maneuvers and reinforcements of the troops on the Syrian border, which were based on a personal request for help from King Hussein to the USA, Great Britain and Israel. In relation to the USA, the Israelis agreed to deploy ground troops on Jordanian but not on Syrian territory to support the royal family.
Destruction of the PLO in Jordan
After the withdrawal of the Syrian troops, the Jordanian General Staff withdrew the 40th Tank Brigade and the 2nd Infantry Division from the border and launched an offensive against the PLO in Irbid. The PLO forces in the center of the capital were able to hold out. Irbid fell to government forces after a week of house- to- house fighting . However, the fighting was so exhausting for the Jordanians that on September 27, 1970 the king agreed to a ceasefire proposed by the Egyptian ruler Gamal Abdel Nasser . The king commissioned his cousin and chief of staff, General Sharif Sayyid bin Schaker, to draw up an offensive plan and gave him the command of the whole. The US Army also received modern M60 tanks .
The Sharif Sayyid bin Schaker plan envisaged the use of armored forces to isolate the cities and refugee camps still in Palestinian hands from each other and then gradually evacuate them with the help of superior firepower. By April 1971, the Jordanian army was able to regain control of most of the cities. 5,000 PLO guerrillas trapped in downtown Amman left the capital. The last irregulars withdrew to the mountainous region around Adschlun and built field fortifications there. The Jordanian army crushed these formations in four days of fighting. On July 18, 1971, the last PLO fighters surrendered to the armed forces.
consequences
The failure of the Syrian intervention strengthened the position of Hafiz al-Assad in the power struggle within the Baath party there, who ousted his opponent Salah Jadid shortly after the fighting.
The PLO had overestimated the willingness of Libya , Egypt and Syria (all Soviet-backed countries) to risk a war on Jordan (backed by the West). As a consequence, the PLO had to move its bases to Lebanon , and Yasser Arafat fled to Cairo .
The defeat in the civil war entered Palestinian usage as Black September . The Palestinian terrorist organization Black September named itself after the war. The first victim was the Jordanian Prime Minister and close confidante of King Wasfi at-Tall in 1971 .
In Iraq, the non-interference of the troop contingent in Jordan escalated the existing rift between Saddam Hussein and his rival Hardan at-Tikriti . Hussein had ordered an intervention, which at-Tikriti, as the local commander, did not carry out due to tactical concerns. At-Tikriti was sent as an ambassador to Algeria at the end of 1970 , then to Sweden . Dissatisfied with his deportation, he flew to Kuwait , where he was murdered on March 30, 1971 on Hussein's orders. Hussein used the affair to replace partisans at-Tikritis with his followers in the country's armed forces.
See also: Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus J. Gantzel, Torsten Schwinghammer: The wars after the Second World War, 1945 to 1992: data and tendencies , Münster 1995, page R-251.
- ↑ a b c d Kenneth Pollack: Arabs at War , Lincoln 2004; P. 335f.
- ↑ a b c Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan , 2nd edition, London 1998, pp. 228-230.
- ↑ Avi Shlaim: Lion of Jordan - The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace , London 2007, pp. 312f.
- ↑ a b c Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan , 2nd edition, London 1998, pp. 233-235.
- ↑ Avi Shlaim: Lion of Jordan - The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace , London 2007, pp. 334f.
- ^ Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Peter Sluglett: The Iraq since 1958 - From the revolution to the dictatorship , Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 145.
- ↑ a b c d Kenneth Pollack: Arabs at War , Lincoln 2004; Pp. 338-340.
- ↑ a b c Avi Shlaim: Lion of Jordan - The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace , London 2007, p. 333.
- ↑ a b Kamal Salibi: The Modern History of Jordan , 2nd edition, London 1998, pp. 340–343.
- ^ Avi Shlaim: Lion of Jordan - The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace , London 2007, p. 339.
- ^ Spencer C. Tucker (ed.): The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars . Michael K. Beauchamp, p. 1241
- ^ Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Peter Sluglett: The Iraq since 1958 - From the revolution to the dictatorship , Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 146f.