The 1968 Siege of Sanaa: The Battle That Decided Yemen's Future

In 1968, as the last royalist tribal forces closed in on Sanaa, the Yemen Arab Republic faced its most desperate hour. For seventy days—from November 1967 to February 1968—the republican government under Qadi Abd al-Rahman al-Iryani and Prime Minister Hassan al-Amri held out against a siege by royalist tribes from Hashid and Bakil, backed by Saudi Arabia. The siege of Sanaa was a turning point in the North Yemen Civil War: had the republic fallen, the imamate might have been restored, and Yemen's twentieth-century trajectory would have been radically different. In this episode, Lucas and Luna discuss the key figures like Abdullah al-Sallal, the role of Egyptian air support, the desperate food shortages, and the last-ditch defense by republican forces under Colonel Ali Abdullah Saleh—then a young officer. They explore how the siege ended when a counter-attack broke the blockade, securing republican rule and shaping the rise of Saleh, who would dominate Yemen for the next three decades.

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