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The British, though not treaty-bound to help, agreed to. But they hoped not to land troops except as a last resort. Instead, after first dropping warning leaflets over Nizwa and its neighboring forts, they sent over the first jet planes that the Omani musketeers had ever seen. After three days and twelve rocket-and-bomb missions, the Sultan's red banner was seen flying in place of the Imam's white flag over the fort at Izki, and old hands at the R.A.F. base at Sharja were saying cheerfully that that was how it always worked in Aden and in the North-West Frontier province.
* The name derives from the treaties of "perpetual truce" ending "hostile acts at sea" (i.e., piracy, slave trading) that the British signed with their rulers in the 19th century.