Rise To Power
For six years prior to Said bin-Taymur's overthrow, Qaboos experienced virtual house-arrest in the Royal Palace of Salalah. In July 1970, soldiers supporting Qaboos clashed with forces loyal to Said bin-Taymur and deposed him. Qaboos maintains that his father abdicated the throne. The British government helped to consolidate Qaboos' power.
Qaboos acceded to the throne on 23 July 1970 after deposing his father in a palace coup with the aim of ending the country's isolation and using its oil revenue for modernization and development, moving to Muscat. There he declared that the country would no longer be known as Muscat and Oman, but would change its name to "the Sultanate of Oman" in order to better reflect its political unity.
The first pressing problem that Qaboos bin Said faced as Sultan was an armed communist insurgency from South Yemen, the Dhofar Rebellion (1965–1975). The Sultanate eventually defeated the incursion with help from the Shah of Iran, Jordanian troops sent from his friend King Hussein of Jordan, British Special Forces, and the Royal Air Force.
Read more about this topic: Qaboos Bin Said Al Said
Famous quotes containing the words rise and/or power:
“Who rise from flesh to spirit know the fall:
The word outleaps the world, and light is all.”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)
“Until a friend or relative has applied a particular proverb to your own life, or until you’ve watched him apply the proverb to his own life, it has no power to sway you.”
—Nicholson Baker (b. 1957)