Britain also played a significant role in the formation of the United Arab Emirates. It was Britain's defence of the Sheikhs of Abu Dhabi in the 1940s and 50s against encroachments and claims on its lands, by the then King of Saudi Arabia, that safeguarded the territorial integrity of what would become the United Arab Emirates. In 1952, a Saudi force invaded the area of what is now Al Ain (Buraimi on the Omani side) and it was the British, in conjunction with the Sheikhs of Abu Dhabi and the Sultan of Oman, who forcibly evicted in them in a conflict known as the Buraimi Dispute.
