IRAKI QUISLINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 122, 26 May 1941, Page 8

IRAKI QUISLINGS

HOW SEEN ON THE

RUN

BAGDAD NEAR PANIC

RETURN OF REGENT

$Rec. 2.15 p.m.) LONDON, May 25

< "Hitler's Iraki Quislings are on the tun." In these words one correspondent seems to sum up the position in Erak. According to well-informed quarters in Ankara what is almost a state of panic exists in Bagdad, as the {British are now reported only 16 |miles away and German aid still rejmains of the slenderest nature.

i While the Ankara authorities are Reported to deny that. Rashid Ali has asked for a transit visa, Naji Shawkat is expected to go to Turkey almost immediately, and the families of both arrived at Ankara during, the weekend. { The Exchange Telegraph Company's {Ankara correspondent says that Rashid !Ali and Naji Shawkat received visas to enter Turkey.

French authorities in Syria state that all Syria's frontiers are closed except the Syria-Turkish border. The "Daily Mail's" Cairo correspondent says that the Regent, Abdul Amit Illah, on his arrival in Irak was accompanied by Iraki notables. He made a statement: "I am issuing a proclamation as soon as I re-enter Bagdad at 'the head of my Iraki troops announcing my return and the formation of a lawful Government. I am certain of popular support as the troops already have begun to desert Rashid Ali.

"My aim is to free Irak from those enemies of Britain who are also enemies of Irak because of the alliance between our two countries."

The Jerusalem correspondent of "The Times" says that Colonel Collet, whose coming over the border caused such a sensation, is of Algerian birth and .one of the most distinguished soldiers (pt modern France. During the Great [War he was mentioned in dispatches [twenty times and was wounded twelve [times. He is the youngest Commander lof the Legion of Honour and his- name lis a household word both in North Africa and Syria.