The Aden Protectorate Levies, Counter-Insurgency, and the Loyalist Bargain in South Arabia, 1951–1957

Loyalist bargains between European colonial powers and indigenous collaborators were fluid and frequently renegotiated. Indigenous forces could mutiny or refuse to execute orders they believed violated the terms of their agreement with the colonial power. As well as enabling colonial violence, locally recruited forces could also restrain it. This chapter examines the experiences and influence of local security forces in the Western Aden Protectorate from 1951 to 1957. It focuses on the Aden Protectorate Levies (APL) who proved increasingly reluctant to carry out a new forward policy in South Arabia. Rather than accepting the Air Ministry’s recommendation to temper their expansionism, colonial administrators blamed Royal Air Force officers in command of the APL for a collapse in morale and successfully campaigned for an increased role for the British Army in Aden and its protectorates. The result was the continued prosecution of a failed policy that consumed ever-greater British military resources.