Page 138 - Demo

138shifting alliances, these were the principal (but not exclusive) recruiting8grounds for the Levies %u2013 except for the egregious Upper Yafai, whose neighbours and kin, the Lower Yafai, were generally considered the most reliable soldiery in the APL. The WAP%u2019s tribes, mainly Sunni (Shafai Sect), also created a useful buffer between the principally Shia (Zaidi Sect) Imamate of Yemen to the north and the cosmopolitan Aden Colony, with its multifarious nationalities, races and religions. In 1936, the renowned British Resident Harold Ingrams, brokered an enduring inter8tribal truce between the Sultan of Quaiti and the Sheikh of the Hadrami. Thereafter the four large States in the EAP became relatively stable, waxing prosperous through overseas trading. Their tribal militias and police maintained order and such border8integrity with Saudi Arabia as was possible without clearly defined borders, with only occasional calls upon the RAF to make either %u2018flag8waving%u2019 warning flights or APL ground forays. The APL was established from the relics of the Yemen Light Typical WAP terrain ? trucks negotiating the Dhala Pass, a favourite enemy ambush area in February 1957.