<P> It has been alleged that Nasser did not want Egypt to learn of the true extent of his defeat and so ordered the killing of Egyptian army stragglers making their way back to the Suez canal zone . There have also been allegations from both Israeli and Egyptian sources that Israeli troops killed unarmed Egyptian prisoners . </P> <P> There have been a number of allegations of direct military support of Israel during the war by the US and the UK, including the supply of equipment (despite an embargo) and the participation of US forces in the conflict . Many of these allegations and conspiracy theories have been disputed and it has been claimed that some were given currency in the Arab world to explain the Arab defeat . It has also been claimed that the Soviet Union, in support of its Arab allies, used its naval strength in the Mediterranean to act as a major restraint on the US Navy . </P> <P> America features prominently in Arab conspiracy theories purporting to explain the June 1967 defeat . Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, a confidant of Nasser, claims that President Lyndon B. Johnson was obsessed with Nasser and that Johnson conspired with Israel to bring him down . The reported Israeli troop movements seemed all the more threatening because they were perceived in the context of a US conspiracy against Egypt . Salah Bassiouny of the Foreign ministry, claims that Foreign Ministry saw the reported Israeli troop movements as credible because Israel had reached the level at which it could find strategic alliance with the United States . During the war, Cairo announced that American and British planes were participating in the Israeli attack . Nasser broke off diplomatic relations following this allegation . Nasser's image of the United States was such that he might well have believed the worst . However Anwar Sadat implied that Nasser used this deliberate conspiracy in order to accuse the United States as a political cover - up for domestic consumption . Lutfi Abd al - Qadir, the director of Radio Cairo during the late 1960s, who accompanied Nasser to his visits in Moscow, had his conspiracy theory that both the Soviets and the Western powers wanted to topple Nasser or to reduce his influence . </P> <P> On 8 June 1967, USS Liberty, a United States Navy electronic intelligence vessel sailing 13 nautical miles (24 km) off Arish (just outside Egypt's territorial waters), was attacked by Israeli jets and torpedo boats, nearly sinking the ship, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171 . Israel said the attack was a case of mistaken identity, and that the ship had been misidentified as the Egyptian vessel El Quseir . Israel apologized for the mistake, and paid compensation to the victims or their families, and to the United States for damage to the ship . After an investigation, the U.S. accepted the explanation that the incident was friendly fire and the issue was closed by the exchange of diplomatic notes in 1987 . Others however, including the then United States Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Chief of Naval Operations at the time, Admiral Thomas Moorer, some survivors of the attack and intelligence officials familiar with transcripts of intercepted signals on the day, have rejected these conclusions as unsatisfactory and maintain that the attack was made in the knowledge that the ship was American . </P>

When did the six day war take place