Aden Emergency The Aden Emergency was an insurgency against the British Crown forces in the British controlled territories of South Arabia which now form part of the Yemen . Partly inspired by Nasser ' s pan Arab nationalism , it began on 10 December 1963 with the throwing of a grenade at a gathering of British officials at Aden Airport . A state of emergency was then declared in the British Crown colony of Aden and its hinterland , the Aden Protectorate . The emergency escalated in 1967 and hastened the end of British rule in the territory which had begun in 1839 . On 30 November 1967 , British forces withdrew and the independent People ' s Republic of South Yemen was proclaimed . Background . Aden was originally of interest to Britain as an anti - piracy station to protect shipping on the routes to British India . With the advent of the Suez Canal in 1869 , it further served as a coaling station . Following the independence of India in 1947 , Aden became less important to the United Kingdom . The Emergency was precipitated in large part by a wave of Arab nationalism spreading to the Arabian Peninsula and stemming largely from the socialist and pan - Arabist doctrines of Egyptian leader Gamel Abdel Nasser . The British , French and Israeli forces that had invaded Egypt following Nasser ' s nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 had been forced to withdraw following intervention from both the United States and the Soviet Union . Nasser enjoyed only limited success in spreading his pan - Arabist doctrines through the Arab world , with his 1958 attempt to unify Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic collapsing in failure three years later . A perceived anti - colonial uprising in Aden in 1963 provided another potential opportunity for his doctrines , though it is not clear to what extent Nasser directly incited the revolt in Aden , as opposed to the Yemeni guerrilla groups drawing inspiration from Nasser ' s pan - Arabist ideas but acting independently themselves . Emergency . By 1963 and in the ensuing years , anti - British guerrilla groups with varying political objectives began to coalesce into two larger , rival organisations : first the Egyptian - supported National Liberation Front ( NLF ) and then the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen ( FLOSY ) , who attacked each other as well as the British . Hostilities started on 10 December 1963 , with an NLF grenade attack against British High Commissioner of Aden Sir Kennedy Trevaskis , which took place as he arrived at Khormaksar Airport to catch a London - bound flight . The grenade killed a woman and injured fifty other people . On that day , a state of emergency was declared in Aden . The NLF and FLOSY began a campaign against British forces in Aden , relying largely on grenade attacks . One such attack was carried out against RAF Khormaksar during a children ' s party , killing a girl and wounding four children . The guerrilla attacks largely focused on killing off - duty British officers and policemen . Much of the violence was carried out in the Crater , the old Arab quarter of Aden . British forces attempted to intercept weapons being smuggled into the Crater by the NLF and FLOSY on the Dhala road , but their efforts met with little success . Despite taking a toll on British forces , the death toll among rebels was far higher , largely to inter - factional fighting among different rebel groups . In 1964 24th Infantry Brigade arrived to conduct land operations . It remained in Aden and the Aden Protectorate until November 1967 . By 1965 , the RAF station RAF Khormaksar was operating nine squadrons . These included transport units with helicopters and a number of Hawker Hunter fighter bomber aircraft . These were called in by the army for strikes against rebel positions in which they would use 60 - pounder high explosive rockets and their 30 mm Aden cannon . On 19 – 20 January 1967 , the NLF provoked street riots in Aden . After the Aden police lost control , British High Commissioner Sir Richard Turnbull deployed British troops to crush the riots . As soon as the NLF riots were crushed , pro - FLOSY rioters took to the streets . Fighting between British forces and pro - guerrilla rioters lasted into February . British forces had opened fire 40 times , and during that period there were 60 grenade and shooting attacks against British forces , including the bombing of an Aden Airlines Douglas DC - 3 , which was bombed in mid - air , killing all people on board . The emergency was further exacerbated by the Six - Day War in June 1967 . Nasser claimed that the British had helped Israel in the war , and this led to a mutiny by hundreds of soldiers in the South Arabian Federation Army on 20 June , which also spread to the police . The mutineers killed 22 British soldiers and shot down a helicopter , and as a result , the Crater was occupied by rebel forces . Following the mutiny , all British forces were withdrawn from the Crater , while Royal Marines of 45 Commando took up sniping positions on the high ground and killed 10 armed Arab fighters . However , the Crater remained occupied by an estimated 400 Arab fighters . NLF and FLOSY fighters then took to the streets and engaged in gunbattles , while arson , looting , and murder was also common . British forces blocked off the two main entrances to the Crater . They came under sniper fire from an Ottoman fort on Sira island , but the snipers were silenced by a shell from an armoured car . Order was restored in July 1967 , when a Scottish battalion entered the Crater and managed to occupy the entire district overnight with no casualties . Nevertheless , deadly guerrilla attacks by the NLF soon resumed against British forces , with the British leaving Aden by the end of November 1967 , earlier than had been planned by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and without an agreement on the succeeding governance . Following the British departure , the NLF managed to seize power , and established the People ' s Republic of South Yemen . Aftermath . Irrespective of the fact that the Suez Canal was shut by Nasser on the eve of the Six Day War , it was to be closed anyhow in the wake of that war because it served as the demarcation line between the Egyptians and the Israeli occupied Sinai desert . And irrespective of the closure of the Suez Canal , the British naval base at Aden also closed in 1967 . These factors would deprive the new oil - poor South Yemeni nation of valuable business and revenue , and precipitate severely disruptive economic circumstances for years afterward .