MANY DEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 142, 18 June 1930, Page 7

MANY DEAD.

BRITISH AIR RAIDS. Heavy Casualties Inflicted on Marauding Tribes. FEONTIEB SITUATION. (British Official Wireless.) (Received 12 noon.) EUGBY, June 17. The Government of India issues an appreciation of the situation in India for the 'week ending June 7. It is stated that the Afridi situation overshadowed everything else during the week. One time the events threatened to assume a very serious complexion. A lashkar, led by Said Badshah and other prominent Mullahs, was known to have formed some three weeks ago near the western end of the Khajuri Plain. Subsequently further concentrations, with standards collected from the Upper Bara and Began, moved slowly towards the Peshawar district border. By June 4 the lashkar had reached a point about fifteen miles west of Bara Fort, and its reported intention was to hold Jirga with the Khalil and Mohmand tribes* of the district, with a view to combined resistance to the alleged Government oppression. On the night of June 4 the lashkar entered the" Peshawar district, and numerous isolated gangs, some of them numbering several hundreds, penetrated Khalil and Mohmand villages up to the cantonment boundary. Khalils and Mohniands were incited to revolt and attack the cantonment, but refused. A large part of the lashkar appears thereupon to have retired westwards towards the hills. [Numerous gangs, however, remained scattered through Khalil and Mohmand country and in the gardens south Peshawar City. Trees were felled and culverts destroyed on the Peshawar-Bara road. On the morning of June 5, parties retiring across Khajuri Plain were bombed from the air, and the Koyal Air Force is reported to have, inflicted heavy casualties. Simultaneously a movable column marched out from Peshawar to clear the country between Bara and the Kohat road. The drive was entirely successful, and the troops are reported to have inflicted severe casualties, although operating in very difficult terrain. Details of the losses suffered by the Government forces are not yet available, but a few casualties as was inevitable in operations of this sort, are reported to have occurred. A careful search conducted on June 6 failed to discover any Afridi stragglers in British territory, and the entire I lashkar appears to have'withdrawn from the district.