1957-05-11 — Page 6

OIL AND

✅ THE CHINA MAIL, · SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1957.

TURMOIL

Jordan, the little land

surrounded by trouble

ISRAEL POP. 1,700,000 ARMY 220,00D MAS PROMISED ACTION IF NASSERITES

LEBANON

Sidon't

Halla,

SYRIA

FOF. 3,800,000, ARMY 45,000 SOTIEF-ARMED AND ANTI-WEST

BIERECT

TAKE OVER JORDAN

Tel Avivi

Matrak

Said

| SUEZ CANALAS

EGYPT POP. 22,900,000

ARMY 100,000

ANTI-WEST OUT

AMMAN

Jerusalem

POP. 1,400,000,

A~N~

IRAQ

POP. 4,800,000 AAMT 50,000 ONLY ARAB MEMBER OF BABDAO PACT PRO-WEST, PRO-

O-HUSSEIN

ARMY 20.000

Mann

Akaba

TO DESTROY JORDAN

AND ISRAEL TO

LEAD ARAB WORLD

MILES

150

SAUDI ARABIA

POP. 8,000,000 АЯМУ 13.000 OIL-RICH BANKERS OF ARAB WORLD

STLES

"Tough luck, boys-your ship going off in a hurry like that.”

Pari

MAP BY JOHN BODLE, COMMENTARY BY DEREK DALE AND DONALD WISE

[ASSER is trying to overthrow 22-year-old King

Britain's oil.

Jordan produces no oil. But look at the map. You see that Jordan border with Iraq? Nasser and his Soviet-armed ally, Syria, want to get their troops on to that border.

Why? Because Iraq is the Oil for America as well as for traditional friend of Britain and Britain is menaced. The U.S. the West, She is also the pipeline known as Tapline goes Middle East's No. 3 oil pro- through Jordan. It carries ducer.

15,700,000 tons of oil a year from the American-run Saudi Arabian felds to

A useful olart, Nasser reckono, for a more to deminate Middle East oll completely.

Nasser hates Iraq's leaders King Felial, cousin of King Hussel, and Premier Nuri al Said.

CHALLENGE Why? Because Iraq chal- lenges his ambition to be ovie- lord of the Arab world and extend his Influence through it noulhwards into Atilca

Sidon In Lebanon, where the tankers. take It aboard.

As the mobs in Noster's allegiance menace King Hussein' in Anaman, the eyes of White- hall. Washington, and the Kremlin look beyond to the oil lands.

Hussein is but a royal paw?) in a much wider and more wily. international struggle,

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It's Nasser Hussein-

TO THE DEATH!

THAT we are faced with

W now in the Middle East

is a battle to the death between Nasser and young Hussein.

You and I have a big stake in this David" and Golinth battle.

It is being fought out in the vital

from arca

which and through which come the main oll supplies for Western Europe. And the peace of the world depends on how 22-year-old Hussein handles this crisis,

HAS

Confident

he

courage,

the decisiveness, diplomary....and the friends....needed to carry him to success?

I am confident he has. For I have just received the inside story of how Hussein handled the coup by which the pro- Nasser officers of the Jordan

•

Intelligenc

SELTON DELMER

A.

Colonel Maen Abu Nuwar [the general's cousin] has just to the troops hero announced that your Majesty has abdicated, The Armoured Corps have tried to arrest Colonel Nuwar. Now the Artillery, who are backing Colonel Nuwar, ate firing on the Armoured Corps.

Army & fortnigh: ago tried to IT

dethrone him and seize contral of Jordan

for themselves and their Left-wing political friends.

E

Reassuring

VERYTHING about this incident a reassuring:-

The king had FRIENDS who tipped him off about the piot. A cousin of his own Court favourite, General Aly Abu Nuwar, they warned, was one of its leaders,

2

DIPLOMACY: The king showed himself an export in the technique of dissembling. orsen Hal in Middlo Fast intriguo.

Although General Nuwar, the army chief of staff, was his closest miltary friend he had been the king's boon companion when in Paris as military at- tache--Hussein did not give the general the slightest hint of his Information.

He pretended to be completely satisfied with the security pre- caution that Nuwar had taken In moving the Bedouin-ofcered Armoured Corps into the copital,

DECISION AND SURPRISE: On the evening of April

13, Nawar, acting for his Left- wing friends, presented Hot of a new Cabinot to the lang. Without oven looking at the list, the king shot the question: "Why have you ordered half of the Amoured Corps to leave for Maan?" (In the far south of i Jordan, far away from Amman.) Why have you told them to move without their ammuni tion?"

Grim......

THE disconcerted general was stammering something about manoeuvres when the telephono rang. Nothing in the young king's taco gave the slightest inkling of the grim moango he hoard as he lifted the receiver, am speaking from the officers' lines at Zērka Camp," Bald the voice of a Bedouin officer well known to the king..

His order

the king drove

unamed into powerful

QUEEN DINA.

in

his own

And from what 'I now learn went

on that night

I think Hussein

will win-but

he will be a victor without

a queen...

little

B:

the midst of the officera at country as Naast is in Egypt, Zerka and nipped the rebellion in the bud,

While Colonel Nuwar and the Artillery commander who had ordered Hiy men to prostrated 'themselves, the wildly happy Bedouin soldiers chaired the king shoulder high.

Queen Dina, la lovely bride, who is seven years Now who are the pillars of older than he is. She has been this new regime set up by the in self-imposed exile in Nassor young king? Ironically, in Egypt ever since the birth of tho order to protect his throne and baby princess.

his kingdom, young Hussein has

She firo tumed back to the very people

is reported to be pro whom he cold-shouldered out Egyptlari. So much

Nasstr when he sacked Clubb.

Hussein knew he was still far from master

AL least temporarily the Rirtation with the allck clerks, Act.001

of the situation Palestinian despite this triumph, So he teachers, and other "Nationalist used Arab tact and guile. Ho Progressives" is over, trcaled the whole thing as a sad misunderstahiling between brother Arabs Anci brother offlcers.

"It hurts

me to so0

blc quarrelling with each other You this. Especially if it is about my person," he said.

was a disquieting situation to put it mildly,

"O brethren," he went on, if

Problems

30

that Was hoplog that sho would return to Amman to exert Influence over Hussein,

But Hussein is being evasive, He is in no hurry to ste Queen Dina. Instead he is reported to be considering a new marriage. The girl is the 20-year-old daughter of Sherif Saud et Din, a kinsman of his who is the present

bo ambassador Damascus.

promated over the heade of TIE young officers who were

The rivalries in Jordan their seniors when the king

between town and desert, placed himself at the head of East

and West Jordan, By their conspiracy last year and espousing the Bedouin Hussein jealousy which

I am to be an obstacle to your got rid of the British are now is creating unity, if any me of you believes either in prison or out of the Nasser will be able to exploit..

But with all this dramatic Rumblings

me to be a traitor to the Arab country. cause, let him shoot me here and now."

And with that he flung tils arms

wide apart and

achievement the king is still

faced with these problems that faced will

But the young king look it in, them. To a man the officers all tackle his stride.

aware eternal fidelity to the king and to each other.

ar

A: Hussein had won this most

important round in the battle with Nasser,

"Right," said the king. "I will be with you in 20 minutes." Turning to General Nuwar be ordered: "Get your

and follow me."

Without stopping to changa into uniform, the king, in his chalk-striped London sult, leaped into one of his fast cars and roared off; the worried THAT same evening, back in the painor, the king set in general behind him.

motion the measures which mode hum today the

Measures

.

COURAGE: The simple have self conádence with which military dictator of Jordan, as

SUEZ POLICY

talco all his qualites to DUT these problems Bro nothing to Nasser's, caused by his first defeat in Jordan.

Already there are The presence in Jordan oi

ominous two battalions of Syrlan rumblings from Syria that a troops under the command of Jordan-type coup is about to Syrian Colonel Said es Sabagh, take place there against Namera who belonge 细 the samé henchmen and allies. political party as political leaders of the million and a half refugees and ex-Palestinians on the king's territory.

Believe me, for Nasser this new crisis is a worse worry than the Anglo- French landings..

He and his troops could

This time UNO and Dulles become the rallying point for a Nasser-sponsored free Jordan cannot help him. Only the

Russians.

movement,

"Now gentlemen, there's no escape-

ALLLLANDA

ot to pay late Pad WAITME