The Koivuusi Civil War was a conflict between the Islamic Republic of Koivuusi and the Communist Vrijheid Insurgents ranging from 1967 to 1968. On February 1, 1967, Vrijheid separatists seized federal military installations and major cities in northern and southern parts of the country in response to the disputed election of 1966. Backing up the Koivuusi government were troops of the Ayansh Treaty Organization, primarily from The Federal Republic of New Felix.

The war caused the collapse of both the Islamic Republic of Koivuusi and the Ayansh Treaty Organization while marking the beginning of Felixan occupation of Koivuusi and the formation of the Colony of Koivuusi. Hostilities officially came to an end on April 19, 1968 when the Vrijheid leadership surrendered to Felixan troops.

Underlying Causes

The most commonly cited causes of the Koivuusi Civil War are increasing racial tensions between Arabs and Caucasians and the rise of Terence Zinda, an oil worker who became a very powerful speaker in the 1950s. Rallying against perceived injustices in the government and worker conditions, Zinda and his followers, whom by 1965 had reached 30,000,000 in number, advocated a communist Koivuusi government.

In the 1966 election, Zinda formed the United Workers Party and sought to create a majority government. However, on December 14, 1966, one night before election day, Zinda was wounded in an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Although the shooter was never caught, many of Zinda's followers suspected that the government was behind the assassination attempt.

The next day, with Zinda still in critical condition, the United Workers Party seemingly won a majority of the five-hundred seat Koivuusi Parliament, until several thousand votes in key races were declared invalid, allowing the incumbent Koivuusi Federation Party to retain its majority. Several international election observers declared foul play, but on December 30, 1966, the Koviuusi Supreme Court ruled in favor of the government.

The Supreme Court ruling caused an uproar. Zinda, whose condition had stablized, called for a revolution live on national television on January 11, 1967. The next day, mass rioting broke out in fifteen cities. The civilian police were not equipped to handle such rioting and in many cases, they actually joined the rioters. Koivuusi Prime Minister Salim al Buzzard responded by sending in federal troops to quell the rioters, although like the police, the Koivuusi Army was not trained to deal with the rioters. On January 26, federal troops opened fire on rioters in Atticus, killing over three-hundred people. Several smaller skirmishes occurred in other cities, resulting in even more civilian deaths.

On February 2nd, provincial governors loyal to the United Workers Party and Terence Zinda ordered their militias to engage federal troops. Ignoring orders from the federal government to cease and desist, the militias, backed by civilian police forces and armed civilians, droved the army out of several cities in the north. The next day, in both southern and northern Koivuusi, militias seized federal military installations, outposts, offices, and other government property, announcing secession and forming the Vrijheid Republic. They quickly arrested prominent civilians who were loyal to the federal government and placed curfews and suspended civil liberties until further notice.

Prime Minister al Buzzard refused to recognize the Vrijheid Republic. Realizing that his military had been weakened, he invoked the AYTO charter. On February 5th, the AYTO nations of New Felix, Vetak, and Novayzerman announced that they would send troops to assist the Koivuusi government against the communist insurgents.

Initial Strikes

On February 7th, fighter-bombers from Felixan aircraft carriers launched airstrikes against Vrijheid positions outside major cities in the northern parts of Koivuusi. Vrijheid forces, still engaged in skirmishes with units loyal to the Koivuusi government, received little warning about the strikes and AYTO forces were able to inflict substantial casualties. However, after another three days of successive strikes, Vrijheid forces were finally able to gain control of government radar stations and air bases (the Koivuusi government had wrongly assured the AYTO command that they were in control of these facilities) , allowing them to take up defensive measures. On February 14, Vrijheid fighters managed to strike back at the bombing raids, taking out over fifty AYTO bombers. Due to false intelligence reports and miscommunication between the Koivuusi government and AYTO forces, many fighters that had been comandeered by Vrijheid pilots were still thought to be under government control, creating mass confusion over the Uusian airspace.

Naval Blockade

In response to the successful Vrijheid counterattack against the bombing raids, Felixan President Ian Cavenaugh ordered a naval blockade of Koivuusi and prepared a marine force of 75,000 troops and an army force of 100,000 for a ground invasion of Koivuusi. He also ordered the marines to seize and occupy all offshore oil platforms before they fell into Vrijheid hands.

Despite protests from the Koivuusi government, Felixan bombers destroyed all government naval bases in Vrijheid-occupied zones of the country to prevent rebelious divisions of the Koivuusi military to gain access to submarines and other docked naval craft. Due to the fact that a majority of the Koivuusi Navy was at sea at the time of secession, it was the only branch of the Uusian military that did not have mass amounts of defections.

Ground Campaign