ABSTRACT
In the 1950s and 1960s the newly-independent Arab states were embroiled in a maelstrom of political conflict as they sought to consolidate their domestic bases and to assert their positions abroad. This period of interArab Cold War was marked by a paradoxical juxtaposition of co-operation and conflict.1 Hence the term 'brotherly enemies'. Arab states and their intelligence services were brothers in that they shared many core goals and values such as Arab unity and rejection of imperialism and of the State of Israel. They were enemies in that interstate and ideological competition and dynastic rivalries often divided them.
