3 - The New Rules of International Engagement

Summary

In Chapter 3, the narrative moves eastwards, to the south-western Arabian Peninsula, as well as forwards in time, to the early twentieth century. In the midst of escalating imperial competition for control of the southern Red Sea coastline, the Ottomans and various Europeans vied for military clients along the coast. Through the careers of two militia leaders, Shaykh Nasr Ambari and his lieutenant and successor Ahmad Fatini, we see colonial chaos spurred the creation of entirely new socio-political groupings. Ambari and Fatini’s men – the Zaraniq – emerged as a band of mercenaries and sea raiders from the south-western tip of the Arabian Peninsula in the late nineteenth century. At the height of their power in the 1910s, they numbered some 10,000 men and their families. The Zaraniq began perpetrating acts of violence against shipping to enhance their value as proxies. In the process they brought local shipping to a standstill. But the strategic, realpolitik alliances that underpinned their rise were ephemeral; after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, the group dissipated and by the late 1920s, their leadership was dislodged. Colonial chaos proved highly disruptive to the region’s stability.