HC Deb 13 April 1965 vol 710 cc1160-2
Mr. J. Amery (by Private Notice)

asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a statement on the incidents in the South Arabian Federation, when two British Service men lost their lives and a number of others were wounded.

The Deputy Secretary of State for Defence and Minister of Defence for the Army (Mr. Fred Mulley)

The Army is at present engaged on a programme of road construction and bridge building on the road from Aden to Dhala. This work is of considerable civil and military importance to the Federation of South Arabia. It is being undertaken by Engineer units of the Regular Army, assisted since the beginning of April by 300 men from 131 Parachute Regiment (Royal Engineers) (Territorial Army) who have been doing the work as part of their annual training of 15 days.

In the middle of last Saturday night one of the camps these troops were occupying was attacked with rocket and small arms fire. I regret to inform the House that as a result of this attack a warrant officer of the T.A. unit and a sergeant of the Royal Army Pay Corps were killed. Two members of the T.A. unit were wounded and three Regular soldiers, one of them severely. The next-of-kin have been informed.

I know that the House will wish to join me in expressing sympathy with the families concerned.

Mr. Amery

While joining with the hon. Gentleman in expressing our sympathy to the families concerned, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he or the Colonial Secretary can tell us whether this is a new dissident movement, or one of the dissident groups with which we were already engaged?

Mr. Mulley

I am asking for a full report of the incident, which has not yet reached me. Questions to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies would be outside the scope of this Question. The right hon. Member will know that my right hon. Friend dealt to some extent with this problem in reply to a Question on 1st April.

Mr. Paget

Will my hon. Friend find out whether this attack was carried out with Egyptian weapons and by a force organised and supported by Egypt? If it turns out to be so, will he take the necessary measures?

Mr. Mulley

The main difficulty in trying to meet my hon. and learned Friend would be to capture the weapons. I am not at all sure that that is likely to be possible.

Mr. Paget

The Minister knows what came—the missiles. Will that not tell him where they came from?

Mr. Goodhart

Is the Minister aware that training in Aden has been very popular with the Territorial Army, and that a decision to cancel any further training schemes as a result of this tragic incident would be badly received? Can the Minister say whether the dependants of the Territorial soldier who was killed will receive the same pension as those of a Regular soldier?

Mr. Mulley

I can confirm, in answer to the second part of the question, that Territorial soldiers are treated exactly as Regular soldiers for pay and pension purposes.

On the first part, I reconsidered very carefully the decision taken some while ago for this T.A. unit to go to Aden in the light of recent developments. I came to the conclusion that, in view of the value of their work, I did not feel that the Territorials would want to be precluded from going because of the increase in tension. I value the hon. Member's assurance that the Opposition agree that, where appropriate, Territorial units should be used in these circumstances.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor

As the warrant officer who was killed was a constituent of mine and personally known to me, and was a Territorial soldier on Army annual camp, would the Minister agree, in the special circumstances, if the family desired it, to fly the body home?

While we appreciate the value of having annual training camps abroad, would the Minister look again at the question of units going to places of extreme danger?

Mr. Mulley

I did not take the view that this location—working on this road—was particularly dangerous, although at present our troops are unfortunately liable to be attacked in Aden proper or any part of the Federation. We could not have guaranteed that such an incident would not occur. My view is that the Territorial Army would not wish to be precluded because of the possibility of danger.

I should like to consider the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question. I will keep in touch with him.

Mr. Amery

Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether this is an area which was previously disturbed, or an area which was formerly regarded as peaceful?

Mr. Mulley

The work and the base camp which was attacked were on the southern part of the Dhala-Aden road. This has been relatively quiet in recent months. The camp was set up on 1st February and there has been no incident until the most unfortunate events of last Saturday, except for the discovery of a mine on the road some weeks ago.