Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men)

by Ranulph Fiennes

  In 1976 a Dhofari lieutenant revealed to Tony Jeapes, SAS (Special Air Service) commanding officer, that he expected to be killed according to thaa’r for the chance shooting, two years previously, of his firqat sergeant-major. The lieutenant often encountered the man asked by the late sergeant-major’s family to kill him. This man was always friendly and they shook hands whenever they met, but both knew that one day, when the time was ripe, one would try to kill the other. The lieutenant had not actually shot the sergeant-major, and no one thought that he had, but the real murderer had escaped to Yemen, and the lieutenant, as picket lieutenant and therefore the man locally in charge on that fateful night, was held responsible.

  The thaa’r system was to cause Sheikh Amr a great deal of trouble.

  On April 7, 1975, Amr was seventy miles to the northwest of his home, at the oasis of Shisr. A message reached him that day that was to change, or end, many lives over the next fifteen years.

  Arabia’s central feature, the Empty Quarter, is the greatest sand desert in the world. Six-hundred-foot-high dunes, constantly on the move, make up much of the sweltering landmass of Oman and Saudi Arabia. The dunes tail away a day’s journey by camel to the north of Shisr and the oasis is, to many desert nomads, the most wonderful place on earth. To the few urban Omanis or Europeans who reach it, Shisr is a fly-blown outpost on the edge of nowhere.

  The remains of an old fort, fashioned from stone and mud, guard a well at the base of a cliff. In the shade of the low rock face that abuts the water, Sheikh Amr and his son Bakhait listened to three Bait Sha’asha’ nomads, the true desert bedouin, bedu-ar-ruhhal, who wished to purchase rice in exchange for camels.

  To the south the dust trail of a vehicle was visible, stirred by the dry blast of the shimaal. Soon a Land Cruiser appeared beneath the scrawny palm trees of Shisr and a short man in a khaki shirt and checked wizaar (a skirtlike wraparound garment) approached. While the man was still a silhouette Amr logged him as a Qara jebali from his hairstyle. Then he recognized the man and felt both pleased and uneasy.

  After the traditional greetings and much gossip of little consequence, Amr and his son took leave of the nomads and followed the newcomer to his vehicle. “What is your news, Baaqi? Why should you come to Shisr where you have no business with man or God?”

  Baaqi was kin and the closest of friends to Amr. “They have convened a conference of the tribe in two days’ time. Your cousin Hamoud is behind it. He has stirred up the others against you, using your failure to fulfill the thaa’r as a sign of your disgrace. Those are his words.”

  “But why a tribal conference this year? It is not due for sixteen months. If Hamoud wishes to depose me, he will have to wait. The tribe will be on the move now. Spring is over and everyone will need to move the herds to the summer grazing.”

  When the PFLO attempted to force Marxism and atheism on to the jebalis in the early 1970s, it was the older folk who bore the brunt of the killings and torture. They proved steadfast in their devotion to Islam and forced a retrenchment of the hard-core communist adoo (enemy), including the likes of Hamoud. By 1975 the coercion had ceased but the older folk faced a new threat to their traditional ways. The Omani Sultan wished to break up the more tribal, regressive customs and to encourage trade and progress. However, many conservatives, seeing that the adoo were no longer all-powerful, began to exhort a return to the thaa’r. Thus encouraged, revenge murderers set to work and by early 1975 a great many feuds had been pursued to their ends.

  Baaqi placed his arm, sinewed by a life of physical effort and a subsistence diet, on his friend’s shoulders. “Hamoud has argued his case with the elders. Soon, he says, the war will be over. The government are daily strengthening their hold on the mountains. Soon jebali life will change forever. Insh’ Allah. There will be great new opportunities and the tribe must have a strong, respected leader to take advantage of such times. He says you are weak and your disgrace is a blemish on our tribal name. By the sharia, he maintains, you should be exiled because you have failed to avenge your own blood not once but three times.”

  Baaqi held a forefinger to alternate nostrils and cleared his nose into the dirt.

  “He has suggested the conference take advantage of the cattle drives by convening in the great cave at Qum. Enough of the families have already agreed.” He paused, looking skyward, as a Hawker Hunter of the sultan’s Air Force, one of a squadron donated by Jordan, streaked overhead. “Amr, my friend, you must go to the conference. Indeed you must chair the meeting as though nothing was in the wind. Then seize the initiative … promise that you will avenge the death of your sons.”

  Baaqi saw the hesitancy in Amr’s eyes, the lack of set to his shoulders and the aimless movements of his hands. He sighed.

  “For many months now you are a different man to the Amr bin Issa I helped elect as our sheikh. Your heart is gone away.” Baaqi looked into the eyes of his cousin. “Is that so? Do you wish to give in? Do you wish Hamoud to plant one of his murdering atheist friends as our leader?” He shook his head and grasped Amr by the elbows. “Remember, there are many of us who will suffer if you go. Your family and your friends. We, who risked much to speak out in harder times to have you as tamimah [head of the local tribal grouping] and to keep out Hamoud’s faction.”

  Amr nodded wearily at Baaqi and looked down at his son. Bakhait, a handsome fifteen-year-old, was clever beyond his years. He said little and missed even less. He loved his father as corn loves the sun. “We will go, Father,” Bakhait said with an intonation neither interrogative nor decisive, but merely encouraging.

  Amr’s Land Rover, laden with sacks of rice, Korean combs and boxes of German knives, followed Baaqi’s vehicle just beyond the reach of his dust cloud.

  In two hours they came to Midway camp for fuel. An isolated oil-company base of six wooden huts erected in the 1960s, the place now sprawled over a square mile of military installations and a modern airstrip used by the sultan’s fighters. A thousand tracks, of camels and vehicles, radiate out through the moon country that surrounds Midway. Muscat, capital of all Oman, lies six hundred miles to the northeast, the South Yemen border a hundred miles to the west, and the Qara Mountains a mere hour by vehicle to the south.

  They passed no sign of life but camels, grazing the dry scrub of the wadi beds. Only ghaf, acacia and gnarled mughir trees can tolerate this arid region. As the outline of the mountains skittered about in the heat shimmer ahead, they sped by the ruins of Hanun. Potsherds and the detritus of neolithic flint factories lay scattered over the gypsum wastes. Here, 2,000 years ago, was a frankincense storage center and, at Andhur to the east, a main entrepot for the laqat incense gum that sold throughout the Roman empire at a price often higher than gold.

  When the Queen of Sheba, from neighboring Yemen, ruled this land, the tribes were animist, worshipping the moon god, Sin, and were slaves to myriad fearful superstitions. Their lives were also ruled by the ghazu, the intertribal raid, and the interminable blood feuds that could last for a hundred years. Wahhabi Islam and its religious reforms swept the old beliefs from much of Arabia but never reached the dark recesses of the Qara hills, where the old ways continued alive and well into the latter half of the twentieth century.

  As early as the 1960s the old sultan, from his Dhofar palace at coastal Salalah, had attempted to outlaw the blood feud. He might as well have spat at the devil, for the thaa’r was not merely a custom; it was the law and a deeply ingrained way of life. In 1975 Sultan Qaboos, alarmed by a fresh surge of feud killings resulting from the war, appeared on Omani television and threatened the death sentence to any perpetrator of the thaa’r.

  Baaqi’s Land Cruiser slowed at the approach to the steep ramp of Aqbat al Hatab and began the climb from the barren nejd to the mountaintop grasslands of the Qara.

  For three months of the year monsoon clouds from the Indian Ocean cover the mountains in a cloud of mist several hundred yards thick. The drizzle falls without ceasing on to the jebel, turning it into a magical pa
radise as green as South Virginia and bursting with life. Hummingbirds, venomous cobras, hyenas and every creepy-crawly on God’s earth are to be found here. Along with some 30,000 jebalis.

  The two vehicles snaked up the Aqbat al Hatab and accelerated as the cliffs and the desert fell away behind and the dry mountain zone, the gatn, stretched moonlike on either side. After a mile or so the slopes showed a threadbare covering of grass, tinder-dry from the long postmonsoon drought. Outcrops of bush and thorny scrub increased until the road ran over the top of the world and there were rolling prairies, herds of cattle and valleys, hidden by junglelike vegetation, cutting between the grasslands like the veins of a leaf.

  More than sixty adult males of the Bait Jarboat tribe from fourteen family groupings were present in the Ghar of Qum. Millennia of erosion and flash floods had cut deep fissures into the limestone cliffs of the Qum Valley. Continued roof falls had opened up a cave as big as a school gymnasium. For three hours either side of noon this south-facing amphitheater was irradiated by the sun. The floor, deep in goat dung, sloped gently upward to meet the innermost limestone walls. Several groups of jebalis sat, squatted or leaned on their rifles. One or two wore army-issue trousers and cotton shirts, and many mixed jebali shawls and wizaars with Western clothing. To a man they carried weapons, mostly Belgian FN rifles donated by the government to ex-communists, but here and there was an AK47, a Kalashnikov assault rifle as used by the PFLO.

  Amr’s younger brothers and their teenage sons were grouped about a wood fire within the cave. All rose to greet the new arrivals. Tea was taken and news exchanged. Everyone knew why they were there but for a while the topic was avoided.

  Baaqi’s eyes were active. He categorized each visitor to the cave. All were interrelated. He knew who hated whom, which man had killed and tortured for PFLO’s Idaaraat execution squads in the early seventies, who had committed adultery and, more important, who might support Amr to continue as the tribal sheikh at this vital time. The fighting was coming to a head and the new sultan would, if victorious, offer great riches to the tribes—especially to the sheikhs whose loyalty he wished to woo.

  “Amr, you must assert yourself now.” Baaqi’s words were loud enough within the little group for all to hear and every man nodded his assent. Amr merely smiled and murmured, “I will think about it. Nothing need be said as yet, for the judgment will start tomorrow after midday.”

  Some miles to the northwest of the Ghar of Qum, as the shadows lengthened over the jebel, a lone Dodge water truck trundled west between two government outposts. It belonged to the government’s Civil Aid Department, which had been set up to help jebalis in areas supposedly freed by the army from PFLO control.

  A PFLO killer unit ambushed the defenseless Pakistanis in their Dodge. Their first missile, an RPG7 rocket, missed the target but a bullet killed the driver, and the Dodge slewed to a halt.

  The adoo, as sultanate soldiers referred to all members of the PFLO, were members of the Lenin Regiment. Their leader, a Masheiki, walked down to the road. The Pakistanis were speechless with fear. One ran away but his legs were shot away from under him and his life was ended with a bullet through the back of the neck.

  The survivors were prodded into a line beside the ditch and dispatched one by one.

  Satisfied with the success of their evening’s work, the adoo separated to return to their various villages. Two headed east toward the Ghar of Qum.

  Amr lay awake, unable to sleep. He should be working out a plan for his survival at the conference on the morrow. Politicking had once been a skill he had enjoyed, and perhaps if he tried hard enough he could find a way around this immediate problem. But his thoughts returned inevitably to his dear lost Shamsa, to her supple warmth and her elfin smile. She had been so proud when he became sheikh of the Bait Jarboat and likely tamimah. But ever since her death, the chess game that was tribal mediation had held no pleasure for him.

  If it were a straightforward matter of demotion, loss of his number-one rank, Amr would have felt little or no unease. But Hamoud and his group of erstwhile Marxists, Amr knew, would wish him permanently out of the way. His crime was simple. His three dead sons, both the children of his first marriage and his first child with Shamsa, had been killed during the past six years in the fighting against the government forces, and he was bound by the sharia of the tribe to fulfill their thaa’r. There were a number of reasons why he had not done so, despite the accumulating disgrace caused by his inaction. All his life, like every other jebali, Amr had listened to the tribal history of bravery and honor, of horrific ghazu raids and blood feuds lasting generations, for such was the very heart and history of tribal existence. Yet he felt no urge for vengeance.

  The brilliant stars above Amr seemed close. He lay and listened to the outbreaks of jebali chatter, birdlike and brittle, from the white khayma tents of a nearby Bait Antaash village. Nobody slept in the caves for fear of the ticks. These emerged, in response to body warmth, from the goat dung. There were giant muesebeckis that caused raging irritation and fever for a week, Latreille bat-ticks whose victims suffered chancrelike lesions and diabetes symptoms, and rhipistomas, hosted by leopards and foxes, that caused deep, poisonous ulcers.

  Echoes of feline screams from the wooded depths of the Arzat Valley reached Amr’s ears. There were wildcats and lynx in plenty as well as the larger predators, wolves, hyenas and the occasional leopard, to threaten the tribe’s goats. So, at night, the animals were corralled into caves behind stockades of thorn.

  Amr loved the jebel but half his soul lay in the Gulf, where the hustle and bustle of commerce had always made his blood run fast. Perhaps it was only fair that Hamoud should become sheikh, for his whole life was wrapped up within the confines of the jebel and its age-old ways. Without Shamsa, the magic of the jebel had lost much of its hold on Amr. The place held too many memories of their time together. In Dubai, amid the scramble of business, Amr might find happiness again. He would take Bakhait and his younger son too. He felt no inner compulsion to fend off the ambitious Hamoud.

  With sunrise, came the call to prayers. Amr had slept little. Four times the ululation “Allahu Akhbar” (God is the greatest) rang out. Then “La ilaha illa Allah” (There is no God but Allah).

  The young Jarboati women, driving the cattle to new pastures, had long since left the village and the valley of the cave when the adult males of the Bait Jarboat tribe met to sit in judgment over their sheikh. Every man knew that if the decision went against Amr, it would go further than a change of leader. His life could even be at stake. Hamoud would see to it.

  Amr did not attempt to force his chairmanship on the day’s proceedings. Baaqi had warned him at dawn of Hamoud’s schemings. “He has been clever. He has paid a judge to settle the problem. A qadhi of the Ashraf tribe to whom all the older folk will listen.” The Ashraf claim ancestry from Al Hashim, the house of the Prophet, and all the tribes respect their judgment.

  Woven ghadaf mats had been unrolled on the dung floor of the cave for the Ashrafi’s comfort. His gray hair was plaited into a two-foot pigtail, his upper body, racked by tuberculosis, was bare and he smoked a short clay pipe. Both eyes were opaque with glaucoma but he sat straight and commanded the respect of his superstition-ridden audience. Beside the Ashrafi squatted the tribe’s rashiyd, a wise man whose views all respected. Along the front of the limestone slope within the cave were some fourteen older men; the elder and therefore the senior Jarboatis. These men were the key to the consensus decision that would be needed to determine the future of Amr and his family.

  Hamoud was invited by the Ashrafi to speak his mind. He was a small, thickset man with an impressive bullet exit wound in one biceps. He clutched an AK47 rifle as he spoke.

  “I do not wish to complain about our sheikh, Amr bin Issa, behind his back but much less do I wish our tribe to be disgraced by his continued presence as our leader.” He paused to wipe sweat from his nose. Far away to the west the dull crump of heavy artillery sounded like tropical
thunder and a faint chirruping chorused from the dark dome of the cave, home to a thousand bats. “So I have asked our families to meet at this time, a time riven by change and threats to our way of life and to the law of the Prophet.”

  Hamoud, like many of the former hard-core communists who had joined the government force, found no dichotomy in reverting to Islam; at least on the surface. He was adept at retaining his options. As he spoke, his eyes roved between the elders and the Ashraf. No one else mattered; these men alone would decide.

  Hamoud continued. “The Prophet spoke words that clearly indicate Amr must go: ‘Those who do not command obediences should not issue orders.’ The sheikh of the Bait Jarboat has always been neither more nor less than the strength of his personal reputation. He is merely the first among equals. That is our way.”

  Hamoud ground the butt of his rifle into the goat dung to emphasize his words. “Amr bin Issa has disgraced us all. He is ayeb, one who neglects the obligations of blood relationship. An ayeb has no position and even his cousins may kill him. Six years ago his son Salim was killed here in this very village.” He shook his free fist in the direction of the cave mouth. “Three years later his firstborn child was killed at Mirbat and earlier this year another son was killed at the caves of Sherishitti. You will remember how at first he swore vengeance. For three years we believed him. Then the fire went out of him and, despite the urging of our respected rashiyd, he continued to neglect his duty. To me the matter reached the end of the camel when this man, our sheikh, was heard in Salalah to pronounce that the thaa’r was no longer a religious requirement.”

  Hamoud paused for effect and was plainly successful. There was a murmur of shock and disapproval from the body of the audience. The elders looked at one another. White beards shook with dismay.