REBEL RAID ON FORT

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28573, 30 April 1958, Page 13

REBEL RAID ON FORT

British Official Still Safe (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) ADEN, April 29. Dawn today was zero hour for the British troops sent to raise the siege by rebel tribesmen of the ‘‘Beau Geste” frontier fort of Assarir in which a British official and Aden Government guards are beleaguered. Men of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry have joined a company of the Buffs and Aden Protectorate levies at Dhala for th’s operation against some 300 rebel tribesmen who have been besieging Mr Fitzroy Somerset, an assistant political agent, and his guards in the fort amid jagged mountains on the Aden-Yemen frontier. Mr Somerset sent a radio message to the relief force last night that all in the fort were in good heart. One of his Aden Government guards has been slightly wounded. Meanwhile, rocket-firing Venom jet fighters continue to harass the rebel tribesmen. [ln ’Cairo last night, Hassan Ben Ibrahim, the Yemeni Deputy Foreign Minister, who is visiting Egypt for discussions about the Aden-Yemen situation, announced that the Yemen has decided to inform the Security Council of the situation created by British occupation of Lahej, a sulatanate in the West Aden Protectorate.]