June 9 was the seventh anniversary of the outbreak of armed struggle in Dhofar, part of the Sultanate of Oman. From its base at Salala on the coast, Britain is leading an army of local mercenaries against the guerrillas of the Popular Front. As the guerrilla war enters its eighth year, reports tell of intensified fighting along the boundary between Dhofar and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. In May British piloted planes and British-officered troops crossed the frontier into Yemen. They attacked the border town of Hauf, destroying the school, the literacy centre and the medical centre, and attacked the Lenin School, where 300 Dhofari children study under a system of pupil selfmanagement. In other fighting Yemeni forces are reported to have destroyed an Omani fort at Habrout, forty miles inland.
These border clashes are the culmination of a British campaign that began at the end of last year's monsoon in early October, and has lasted up to the start of this year's monsoon, at the beginning of June. Code-named "Operation. Jaguar" the campaign had three aims. 1 To establish a line of fire-bases along the Dhofar-Yemen border and block all communication between the two. Although the total border runs for 200 miles inland it is only the first 40-50 that are vital since they are mountainous with tropical vegetation; the rest is desert and provides no cover for guerrillas. 2. To reoccupy parts of the eastern province of Dhofar, the most populous zone, and because it had seen the least fighting up to last year, the one where popular mobilisation was weakest. 3. To terrorise the population by intensified bombing, sudden helicopter-borne attacks, and an economic blockade designed to starve them out and force them to surrender.
In October-November of last year Britishofficered Arab troops and a detachment of the British Special Air Services attacked into eastern Dhofar. But by the end of the year they had suffered heavy casualties: several SAS men were killed, although the British were able to keep this information quiet until it leaked out in January. As in Vietnam, it is always possible for the imperialist forces to penetrate specific parts of a liberated area provided they devote sufficient fire-power to it. In the eastern province of Dhofar they have been able to seize a certain number of strong points. But as elsewhere, these are subject to constant bombardment by guerrilla forces. In the new year the British attacked westwards. To reinforce their eastern and western campaigns they built a line of fire-bases in the desert —the "Leopard Line" - north of the tropical mountains in which the popular army moves. While these bases were in themselves away from the strategically key zones, they were relatively inaccessible to the guerrillas because of the lack of cover. And from them the British were able to cut into the mountains, southwards, to meet parallel thrusts coming northwards into the mountains from the coast. In the west the main new British camp, at Thagbeet, became the focus of continued forays, ambushes and shellings, through the first months of this year. The British tried a series of landings on the coast of the western province, and stepped up aerial attacks on
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