The Aden riots of December 2–4, 1947 targeted the Jewish community in the British Colony of Aden. The riots broke out from a planned three-day Arab general strike in protest of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), which created a partition plan for Palestine. The riots resulted in the deaths of 82 Jews, 33 Arabs, 4 Muslim Indians, and one Somali, as well as wide-scale devastation of the local Jewish community of Aden. The Aden Protectorate Levies, a military force of local Arab-Muslim recruits dispatched by the British governor Reginald Champion to quell the riots, were responsible for much of the killing.

The Aden Protectorate Levies (APL) was a military force recruited from indigenous tribal populations, for the local defence of the Aden Protectorate under British rule. The Levies were drawn from all parts of the Protectorate and were armed, trained and officered by the Indian Army, Royal Air Force and British Army at various stages in the history of the force. They used the Lahej emblem of crossed jambiyah as their badge.