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PART I
The International Situation,
(Based on information received up to 8th March, 1928.)
ARABIA.
The latter part of 1927 and the early months of 1928 have been marked by several desert affrays on the northern borders of Arabia. The pretext for this outbreak of marauding was the establishment by Iraq of a fortified police post at Busaiyah, about fifty miles to the Iraq side of the ill-defined boundary between that country and Nejd. The Wahabi tribesmen of Nejd professed to regard this fortification as a deliberate provocation and a breach of the Protocol of Uquair, an inter- tribal agreement regarding grazing rights, wells and other matters in dispute. It is more probable, however, that the Wahabi merely seized on the first plausible excuse to resume their accustomed and hereditary occupations of pillage and slaughter.
Twenty Iraqi police and thirty labourers were killed by the Wahabis in their attack on Busaiyah in November. This raid was followed by several other attacks on the Iraqi border tribes at different points.
On 13th December, R.A.F. aeroplanes from Iraq attacked the raiders, who were then well within the borders of Iraq. The Wahabi tribesmen were led by the Sheikh Faisal Ed Dowish, who, while professing loyalty to his master Ibn Saud, disapproves of his method of settling differences with Iraq by negotiation.
On 27th January, 1928, a Wahabi force, led by a Sheikh named Ibn Akhwan, raided the territory of the Sheikh of Koweit, who is in treaty relations with Great Britain. Both sides suffered heavy casualties, but the Koweitis gained the day and compelled the Wahabis to give up their plunder. H.M.S. Emerald, then in the Persian Gulf, was ordered, if called upon by H.M. Political Resident, to co-operate in the defence of Koweit in the case of an attack on that port.
It was reported on 17th February that the Wahabis had attacked the Beni Sakr tribe on the Trans-Jordan frontier, over 300 miles away from the scene of their previous raids. The Beni Sakr defended themselves vigorously, and though they lost their leader and 120 men, they killed 100 of the Wahabis.
On 26th February, R.A.F. aeroplanes bombed the oasis of Es Safa in the Nejd desert. At this point there was a concen- tration of Wahabi raiders with much of their plunder.
Ibn Saud, King of the Hedjaz and Nejd, disclaimed all responsibility for the raids by the Wahabis, but urged as a justification for their actions that the erection of fortified posts on the Iraq border was contrary to the spirit of the Uquair
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