Ummayan Civil War
| Ummayan Civil War | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Destroyed JCh-3 and JCh-5 tanks, given to rebel forces, in the city of Saladina. | ||||||||
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| Belligerents | ||||||||
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Regime forces |
Rebel forces |
Shahidic Front
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| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
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Omar al-Muttalib (President of Naseristan) William Anderson |
Sherif Muhammad al-Fattah (Commander-in-Chief of rebel forces) |
Muhammad al-Harabi (Caliph of East Naseristan) | ||||||
| Strength | ||||||||
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Taleyan People's Front: 180,000 (est) |
 Junud al-Kabaab: 30,000 (est) | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
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The Ummayan Civil War, also known as the Ummayan War of Independence and the Naseristani Civil War, was an armed conflict fought in what was formerly Naseristan during the mid-2000s. Motivated by ethnic and sectarian disputes, it resulted in the partitioning of the country into Ummayah, which controls the southern half of the country's former territory, and Naseristan, a rump state in the north.
Though initially restricted to Naseristan, with some involvement from Qusayn, the conflict's abrupt escalation in 2004 drew in a wide range of foreign powers, including, Menghe, Maverica, Dayashina, and Innominada. It played a key role in upsetting relations between Menghe and Maverica, which intervened on opposing sides, and also represented a significant step forward in Menghe-Dayashinese military cooperation. Within Casaterra, it caused political strife between AVA states. Tyran's intervention was supported and backed by Sieuxerr, however Sylva would push for deescalation throughout the conflict.
The naval conflict between Menghe and AVA was promptly put to a stop when a joint Rajamaan-Dayashinese task force sailed down to the conflict area, separating the the two battlegroups and escorting the Menghean battlegroup as it returned to port. The task force included four state of the art Suijin-equipped Yakaze-class destroyers, with AAW capabilities sufficient to deter further aerial strikes from both sides.
While a ceasefire was signed in June 2005, the two states are still locked in a frozen conflict. Neither recognizes the other's existence, and both officially lay claim to the entire territory of what was once Naseristan. The Ummayan-Naseristani border is highly militarized, as both sides have used oil revenues and geopolitical alliances to build up their conventional forces.
Background
Ethnic division
Throughout much recorded history, Naseristan had been divided into two major ethnic groups: the Naseris, who lived predominantly along the coast and around the Nāṣer River at the heart of the country, and the Taleyas, who were distributed mainly in the south and the interior of the country. Historically, Taleyas made up some 80% of the overall population, but Naseris were wealthier and more influential, as they occupied the more fertile areas of the country and had better connection to naval trade with Imperial Menghe. Naseris and Taleyas also differed in religion; both were overwhelmingly Shahidic, but the Taleyas mainly followed the Rashaida sect, while Naseris were overwhelmingly Kharjii.
For most history prior to colonization, an uneasy truce had existed between the two sides. After repeated flare-ups of religious war between the 12th and 14th centuries, in 1409 a line of Naseri sultans consolidated control over the throne, but offered generous terms to Taleyans in exchange for their submission. Some Taleyan palace members, in spite of their slave status, acquired considerable influence as advisors and administrative officials, and Taleyans in rural areas enjoyed considerable autonomy, including the right to build Rashaida mosques.
The situation changed in 1732, when the United Kingdom of Tyran conquered Naseristan's ports and integrated it into the Tyrannian Empire as a crown colony. At first, they carried on with the existing structure, relying on a combination of Naseri and Taleyan local intermediaries to govern the colony under the leadership of Tyrannian overseers. By the late 19th century, however, the colonial bureaucracy was staffed almost exclusively by Naseris, whom the colonial rulers perceived as better-educated and more civilized because they were concentrated along the wealthier areas of the coast. Denied access to the colonial bureaucracy and regularly called up for plantation labor, Taleyans fell further behind, and tensions between the two sides intensified, with Naseris viewing themselves as more civilized and Taleyans viewing themselves as the mass population.
Muttalib rule
In 1955, Naseristan was formally transferred to an elected independent government sympathetic to Tyran. Free elections were held, but Socialist-affiliated parties were outlawed, and Tyrannian security officials transferred generous funding to the ruling Naseri Liberal Party. While the NLP was able to use this unbalanced democratic system to hold on to power, corruption steadily rose, and rival patronage-based cells in the government competed for power.
This state of affairs was abruptly upset in 1973, when the influential Minister of Finance, Hussein al-Muttalib, staged a coup d'état with the help of a cell of relatives and personal supporters in the military. Eager to consolidate power, he initiated a purge of his pre-coup rivals, including several of his important supporters in the military who had become checks on his authority. Elections were held every four years, but opposing parties were banned, and the Muttalib family used rents from oil companies and other private holdings to prop up an extensive patronage network.
Himself a Naseri, al-Muttalib favored co-ethnics in his administration, tightening oppression of the Taleyan majority. Tyrannian military advisors tolerated this move and supplied the Muttalibs with arms and funding, as the main opposition group, the Taleyan Workers and Peasants' Front, was a Communist organization supplied by the Democratic People's Republic of Menghe and the Federation of Socialist Republics.
In 1994, the reins of power passed to Omar al-Muttalib, the former President's son. His administration became even more divided and venal, with corruption eviscerating all economic activity outside the foreign-controlled oil sector. In an attempt to rally his control over the capital and other developed areas, Omar al-Muttalib stepped up persecution of the Taleyan population.
Timeline
Insurgency
The intensification of government persecution, combined with the erosion of state capacity, contributed to the expansion of Taleyan insurgent activity during the early 2000s. By 2003, the Taleyan People's Front, a successor to the Workers and Peasants' Front, exercised de facto control over a wide swath of desert near the Qusayni border. They were supplied with arms from Qusayn's ruling Behav regime, which was majority-Taleyan and majority-Rashaida.
After Naseristani government forces employed chemical weapons against a Taleyan-held town in July 2003, Menghe indirectly entered the conflict, shipping troops and military advisors to Qusayn in order to support the Taleyan People's Front from across the border. In November of that year, Menghe unilaterally established a no-fly zone over southern Naseristan, leaving the two countries in a state of undeclared war. These conditions allowed the Taleyan People's Front to expand its area of control, and in January 2004 Taleyan insurgents liberated Makkah, the holiest city in Shahidism.
Coup attempt
Concerned over the speed with which the insurgency was gaining ground, and hoping to prevent fighting from reaching the most developed areas of the country, a faction of former-Loyalist Taleyan officers and Naseri sympathizers in the military began laying plans for a military coup, in the hopes of overturning the al-Muttalib government and installing a majority-Taleyan Socialist regime.
Prior to the coup, the conspirators had consulted with Menghean diplomats and won tacit support, but due to a breakdown in communications the Menghean Air Force did not send fighters and strike planes to support them. The conspirators also overestimated their level of support among the Army's ranks, and one of their contacts, a commander in Omar al-Muttalib's Presidential Guard, had turned out to be a double agent, alerting regime loyalists of the plot so that they could intercept Army units on route to the Presidential Palace. After scattered fighting on the night of August 20th-21st 2004, the coup was crushed, and the ringleaders arrested the following morning.
While the coup failed to overthrow the al-Muttalib family, it severely fragmented the Naseristani Army, undercutting the regime's already tenuous support. Fearful of the troops' loyalty, high-ranking officers initiated a sweeping purge of Taleyan personnel, and soldiers of all ranks began deserting their posts out of concern that regime collapse was imminent. By mid-September, the al-Muttalibs' control had all but collapsed in the southern half of the country, and was limited to bastions around urban areas in the north and center.
By this time, there were three broad factions in the civil war. The Menghe-backed Taleyan People's Front had made the largest gains, but its control was still concentrated in the southern half of the country, and it did not control any of the "river valley cities" at the heart of the country. In the north, the al-Muttalib regime held a shrinking land area but still controlled the major cities, as well as most of the country's operational airbases. In the chaos following the coup, a third, radical Shahidist organization, the Junud al-Kabaab, had gained control of large swaths of inland areas, preaching a fundamentalist version of Shahidism and seeking to set up a caliphate that included the holy city of Makkah.
Tyrannian intervention
On November 5th, 2004, Shahidist radicals preaching loyalty to Junud al-Kabaab carried out a major terrorist attack in Hadaway, the capital of Tyran. Armed with smuggled assault rifles, bombs, and knives, they were eventually subdued by police and local military forces, but not before leaving 84 people dead and hundreds more injured.
Infuriated by the attack, the Tyrannian government authorized the deployment of an expeditionary force to Naseristan, with the goal of propping up the faltering al-Muttalibs and removing al-Kabaab from its areas of control. Operations that followed were heavily criticized by the international community for their intense collateral damage. These saw Tyrannian forces targeting al-Kabaab cells and Taleyan rebels in densely populated areas, resulting in many civilian losses for minimal enemy losses. After the first waves of Tyrannian troops arrived in Naseristan, Sieuxerr announced its backing of Tyran and deployed the 2nd Light Demi-Brigade along with naval forces. Citing the loss of Sieuxerrian citizens in the November 5th attack as their reason to send intervention forces alongside Tyran.
A few months later, the outbreak of the Christmas Riots in Innominada left 200 dead and many more injured, as members of the ethnic Creole majority attacked Shahidic minorities in the northeast. Accusing al-Kabaab sympathizers of instigating the violence, the Innominadan government declared its support for the Tyrannian intervention, and sent its own strike aircraft to northern Naseristan in order to carry out retaliatory airstrikes.
Maverica, a longtime ally of Innominada, sent its own aerial expeditionary force to assist in strike operations. It also deployed a limited ground force, sending military advisors to help the regime expand its forces and multiple companies of Mêranî special forces to conduct independent operations.
News of atrocities carried out by Innominadan and Tyrannian forces prompted Menghe to send its ground troops across into Naseristan proper, crossing the border on January 11th, 2005. Their stated goal was to push back expanding pockets of al-Kabaab control, including a southward drive that threatened to retake Makkah, but the scope of the operation suggested a plan to seize the last regime strongholds and prevent Tyrannian forces from pushing south after they finished consolidating control in the north. Menghe's official justification for expanded operations was an effort to end Tyrannian war crimes, but the Tyrannian government interpreted it as an aggressive campaign to expand Menghean influence in the Eastern Hemisphere.
Menghean response
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In response to coalition airstrikes on civilian areas, on February 12th Menghe extended its existing no-fly zone north of the Naser river, threatening to shoot down both regime and interventionist strike aircraft which entered this area. This declaration was tested on the 17th, when two Innominadan tactical bombers flew a course between Basra and Qasim, flying toward Makkah. Dreading a strike on the holy city, Menghean fighters shot down the Innominadan aircraft, the first exchange of fire between Menghean and coalition forces. In the weeks that followed, open aerial skirmishes erupted between Menghean, Innominadan, and Tyrannian aircraft.
By February 20th, Menghean ground troops had already reached the outskirts of Basra, and were beginning to advance into the city. Poorly trained in urban warfare and counter-insurgency tactics, they sent tank columns rushing into the city center before infantry support could arrive, losing dozens of vehicles to RPG fire from roofs and alleys in the first day of the attack. Subsequent fighting proceeded more slowly, as regime forces were rolled back into pockets around the city's police headquarters and the office district. Within two weeks, the city was declared secure, and Menghean forces moved to support the rebel offensive into the capital, Al-Haram.
During the same period, the 5th Surface Strike Group proceeded north along Naseristan's shore, supporting coastal operations with artillery bombardment. On March 3rd, elements of the First Marine Infantry Brigade conducted amphibious landings in Al-Hishan Bay north of Saladina, cutting off regime forces moving to reinforce the city - and unwittingly catching several Maverican advisors in the crossfire.
Fighting around the capital was much fiercer, and soon grew into a prolonged siege. Rebel forces controlled the countryside around the city, and a Menghean armored regiment moved in to consolidate their defenses to the north, but the regime troops left behind included most of the Presidential Guard and the local population included a large Naseri minority which had benefited from the al-Muttalib family's reign. Menghean forces relied extensively on local Taleyan militia to support their operations and provide intelligence, and at least one battalion of volunteers from Qusayn is known to have taken part, though formally the Qusayni government denies any involvement on the part of its troops.
Battle of the Aqaba Sea
The movement of Menghean ships up the Naseristani coast and the landings at Al-Hishan Bay became a source of concern among Tyrannian naval officials, who expressed concern over the risk of an attack on their supply lines. On March 14th, a pair of Tyrannian naval aircraft fired missiles at the Menghean frigate Mudŏk, landing one hit near the stern. While the Mudŏk did not sink, it did suffer major damage, and was forced to withdraw from military operations.
While Tyrannian commanders intended this as a threat, Menghean naval officials interpreted it as a deliberate act of escalation, and proceeded to regroup their forces for an attack on the Tyrannian fleet. The engagement began on March 17th. In accordance with prior exercises, the Menghean fleet opened with a massed barrage of heavy anti-ship missiles fired from cruisers and destroyers. They believed that they were engaging the core of the Tyrannian carrier battle group, but in fact the carrier itself was 200 kilometers north of the opposition they faced - a forward detachment of escort vessels including the helicopter carrier HMS Bellmont. Hindered by inconsistent intelligence reports and poor coordination with the Menghean Air Force's land-based units, the 5th Surface Strike Group engaged at too great a range, often with inaccurate estimates of enemy ships' locations. Tyrannian after-battle reports suggest that a number of Menghean anti-ship missiles passed too far west of the formation to acquire a lock, while others fell into the sea on approach. Others were lost to jamming, chaff, or surface-to-air missiles from the escort group.
Out of 32 anti-ship missiles fired in all, four are known to have hit their targets. One YDH-27 heavy AShM from the cruiser Chungsŏng struck the Dauntless-class destroyer HMS Grafton head-on, inflicting severe damage and sinking the ship in a matter of minutes. Two YDG-25s struck the replenishment ship HMS Fort Edward, starting fires that the crew struggled to control; the ship was abandoned the following day. The helicopter carrier HMS Bellmont sustained a single hit from a YDG-25, losing more than half of its onboard helicopters, but ultimately damage crews brought the fires under control and the ship was able to return home under its own power.
Strike aircraft from the Tyrannian force promptly counterattacked the Menghean fleet, which had begun to withdraw after expending most of its heavy anti-ship missiles. The Chŏndong-class destroyers Bŏngae and Nunbora both suffered hits, with the former taking on water and capsizing two hours later after flooding spread through an open hatch in the engine compartment. The frigate Daesun was lost as well, scuttled by the destroyer Dolpung after her crew had been taken aboard.
During the night of March 14th-15th, the 5th Strike Group continued its retreat southwest, but the destroyer Nunbora lagged behind, apparently suffering trouble with one of its diesel engines. In the early pre-dawn hours of the 15th, it was abruptly split in two by a torpedo detonation under the keel, apparently fired by a Tyrannian submarine in pursuit. With the speed of the ship's destruction, officers were unable to send an emergency distress signal, and as the formation was maintaining radio silence their absence was not initially noticed. Later in the morning, the Dayashinese destroyer RDNS Shiokaze arrived at the scene and picked up the survivors, transporting them to a naval base nearby.
Both sides deemed the battle inconclusive, though Tyrannian naval forces achieved a limited victory by preventing the loss of their supply lines. Moreover, with only a few anti-ship missiles remaining and enemy forces to the northeast, the 5th Surface Strike Group was effectively stuck in Qusayn for the remainder of the conflict until replenishment ships could sail the long way around the eastern coast of Meridia.
Ground fighting continues
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With the help of Menghean mechanized troops, rebel forces were able to consolidate their control over the open plains north of the Naser river, yet pro-regime and pro-Naseri fighters still held out in pockets within the major cities, including the capital. Rebel forces could amass superior numbers, yet they faced crack units in the Presidential Guard, and after its experience at Basra the Menghean Army was much more cautious in its urban operations. Urban fighting dragged on until late April in Saladina, and early May in Al-Haram.
As rebel and Menghean forces closed in on the capital's city center, Coalition commanders expressed concern that the remaining tattered government forces would collapse if the President, still in his palace bunker, were killed. On April 12th Tyrannian forces launched Operation Livery, a daring raid to rescue Omar al-Muttalib via helicopter. In spite of the large concentration of rebel forces around the capital, the operation was a success, with Tyrannian helicopters evacuating the President and his immediate family from the palace grounds and flying them back over the sparsely defended open ground around the city. This provided a major boost in morale to forces in the north of the country, but also undermined confidence among those who remained behind in the capital; on May 3rd, the flag of the Taleyan People's Front was raised over the Presidential Palace.
Another shock to Menghean forces came on April 29th, when Tyrannian special forces on LRRP operations raided an airfield south of Basra. In the speed of their advance, Menghean Army forces had left few guards at the captured airbase, and nearly a full squadron of DS-5 fighters were lost in the chaos that ensued. By the time a company of mechanized troops arrived to investigate, the attackers had long since retreated back into the desert. This disaster came as a shock and an embarrassment to Menghean commanders.
In the easternmost area of the country, land initially seized by Junud al-Kabaab was slowly rolled back from the north and south, as both coalition forces and Menghean-backed rebels fought to suppress the extremist organization. The Taleyan People's Front relieved the city of Qasim on March 29th; sympathetic rebel groups had seized control of the city in February, but were surrounded by al-Kabaab forces until then.
Confrontation with the Menghean 2nd Carrier Fleet
Hoping to relieve the 5th Surface Strike Group, still trapped at its base in Qusayn, in May the Menghean Navy dispatched the 2nd Carrier Fleet (built around the aging CV Sinbukgang) through the Strait of Portcullia. In keeping with a secret, informal agreement to keep the fighting contained to Naseristan itself, Innominadan forces did not attack the Menghean task force as it approached the strait, but did conduct anti-ship missile strikes after it passed by; the 2nd Carrier Fleet sustained no damage, though it did lose two escort fighters against the Innominadans, who lost three strike planes.
Tyrannian naval forces stationed in Moradabad, Khalistan mobilized to head off the attack, and shadowed the Menghean fleet from a distance. The light carrier HMS Invincible, led the formation, but her sister ship Illustrious was still undergoing maintenance and could not take part in the operation.
Before naval combat could explode once again between the Tyrannian and Menghean assets, a joint task force composed of Rajamaan and Dayashinese ships arrived onto the scene without warning, physically placing themselves in the middle of two groups, ordering an immediate stoppage of movement from both of the likely-soon to engage carrier battle groups. The joint task force featured enough AAW capabilities to completely shut down any further large-scale aerial attacks from either side, a reality that was quickly realised by the commanding officers of both groups.
Ultimately, aware that the stakes were too high for a now-meaningless confrontation, on May 18th Marshal Choe Sŭng-min ordered the 2nd Carrier Fleet to withdraw, under the escort of elements from the Republic of Dayashina Navy. In return, with the help of Dayashinese, Rajamaan, and Sylvan intermediaries, he expressed interest in a negotiated solution to the conflict in Naseristan, with the goal of de-escalating the situation.
Peace agreement
The first multi-party negotiations for peace were held in the capital of Rajamaa, during the second week of June 2005. Overall, the first round of negotiations ended in failure, as both parties in Naseristan believed that they held the upper hand and presented each other with incompatible demands. Representatives of the Taleyan People's Front stated that they would only move ahead with negotiations if Omar al-Muttalib and members of his inner circle were put on trial for crimes against humanity, while representatives of the regime insisted that they retain control of the Naser river valley at minimum, and the entire country at maximum. There was also broad disagreement over how to divide up the eastern corner of the country, much of which was still under de-facto extremist control (representatives of Junud al-Kabaab were not invited to the negotiations).
The June negotiations did, however, provide an opportunity for Coalition diplomats to de-escalate their own confrontation with Menghe, with the aim of preventing a repeat of the near-brush with nuclear war that had taken place in May. From that point onward, Coalition and Menghean forces withdrew from the stauts-quo front line to avoid inflicting casualties on one another, though rebel and regime forces continued to clash along its length. Menghe also reduced the scope of its no-fly zone, allowing Coalition aircraft to strike al-Kabaab targets in the east.
As a deadlock set in along the front line, with neither domestic side able to wrest control from the other, rebel and regime forces agreed to a second round of negotiations in late August. The talks lasted from the 21st to the 27th, and ended with a formal ceasefire freezing the two sides' control along the de-facto military border. This left a reduced Naseristani rump state in the north, and an independent rebel territory in the south, which would go by the name of Ummayah (after Ummah, "a community of peoples" or "the Shahidic community").
International impact
Menghe-Maverican split
One immediate effect of the Ummayan Civil War was to drive a wedge between Menghe, on the one hand, and Maverica and Innominada, on the other. While negotiations did succeed at preventing the war from spreading to the mainland, both sides announced that they would remilitarize their borders, ending the unified Hemithean Socialist front that had united these countries in the 1960s. In time, Dzhungestan and Polvokia would declare their support for Menghe, completing the split.
International debates over the war also tapped into wider rifts which had opened between Menghe and its Socialist neighbors in the seventeen years since the Decembrist Revolution. Menghe's economic reforms had pivoted the country toward state capitalism while also maintaining authoritarian controls over personal freedom, a contrast with the state-controlled and somewhat more individualistic economy of Maverica and the worker-led syndicalism of Innominada. Though seldom mentioned in official discourse, there were also growing ethnic disagreements, with both sides increasingly tapping into conventional nationalist rhetoric.
In time, the highly militarized border between Menghe and Maverica would come to dominate Hemithean geopolitics, becoming a major source of tension in Septentrion. Tensions would peak again in the Innominadan Crisis, which saw Innominada partitioned into Menghean- and Maverican-dominated halves.
Menghean military reforms
The Menghean military's disappointing performance throughout the Ummayan Civil War was an embarrassment to Army High Command, especially in light of the new conventional land threat along the border. Before the ceasefire agreement was even signed, on August 5th Choe Sŭng-min ordered a blunt and pragmatic investigation into the root causes of these failures, initiating what would come to be known as the 2005 Military Reforms.
In the preliminary assessment, published in November, the Ministry of Defense identified seven overarching deficiencies:
- Poor coordination between fixed-wing aviation and surface forces (whether Army or Navy);
- A lack of initiative and independent thinking on the part of commanders, not only at the Company and Platoon levels but higher;
- Deficiencies in combat training for regular troops, especially in situations of urban combat;
- Deficiencies in the combat capabilities of land vehicles, including in armor, optics, and communications;
- Lack of long-range precision-guided munitions capability, whether air-, land-, or sea-launched;
- Major gaps in rear-area security around headquarters and airbases;
- Inefficient warship design, including large radar cross-sections, poor SAM defense, and limited AShM capacity.
In time, other criticisms were raised, and these points were elaborated. But overall these formed the core of the reforms that took place from 2005 through 2007, all of which aimed to achieve major increases in the armed forces' qualitative fighting capability.
Sieuxerrian evaluation of Menghean forces
Following an end to hostilities by June of 2005, the Sieuxerrian Armed Forces began to joint evaluation of the fighting, focusing on its own performance. It also was focused on the performance of Menghe and its own armed forces, as Sieuxerrian leaders were very aware of the rising power and influence of Menghe on the wider international scene. Sieuxerr noted its own forces performed relatively well, however a lack of support from local forces was a primary cause for problems encountered.
Following somewhat inline with the Menghean evaluation, Sieuxerr's evaluation was two sided in nature, praising Menghean forces while also heavily criticizing them. The criticism was:
- Menghean forces on a regular basis demonstrated a lack of communication with higher echelons of command;
- Menghean technological deficiencies showed greatly during engagements between light and heavy armor forces and during aerial combat;
- Menghean forces demonstrated a lack of clearly set objectives and goals, muddling decision making and causing forces to lose initiative during assaults;
- Menghean forces lacked morale and vision within its enlisted and non-commissioned officer ranks;
Positive comments were:
- Menghean forces showed good adaptability at lower levels of command and were able to respond rapidly during direct confrontations with enemy forces;
- Menghean artillery coordination, when communication deficiencies allowed it, is utterly devastating and can render non-armored forces ineffective;
Napoleon VII, Emperor of Sieuxerr, commented on Menghe's role in the civil war and its rise in the world:
In this fight, Menghe had nothing to lose and everything to gain. What has been demonstrated to the world is rising influence of Menghe as not just a regional power, but as a nation aspiring to be a "superpower". In the intervention by nations who decried the conflict only after we were starting to gain the advantage at sea, but not during the losing ground conflict, it was clearly demonstrated to us that many nations across the world are attempting to gain favor with Chairman Choe. In the coming years we will see more displays of rising Menghean influence. They will learn many lessons from this conflict, the Menghean armed forces we fought in Ummayah will not be the Menghean armed forces we will see in any hypothetical future conflicts.