ATTITUDE OF RIFFS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 29 November 1924, Page 2

ATTITUDE OF RIFFS.

LEADER’S BOLD FRONT; ABDUL’S RETORT TG FRANCE. LONDON, Nov. 11. Abdul Krim is apparently not perturbed at the French threat to oust him from the position he has occupied within the French zone in , Morocco. The leader of the Riffs, according to the Tangier correspondent of The Times, claims that he is legally entitled to occupy the region, in which he found no signs whatever of the demarcated frontier. Moreover, he refuses to admit that the territory he has occupied falls within the French zone, and states that he is prepared to defend it should the French forces march against him. The possibility of a French campaign in Morocco was foreshadowed by Marshal Lyautey, the French Resi-dent-General, in a statement he recently made to the Tangier correspondent of The Times. Marshal Lyautey said that Riff and other tribesmen had taken up strong positions in the French protectorate territory extending eastward along the borders of the Spanish zone. He has received definite assurances from the French Government that all the necessary troops and material would be put at his disposal if he. considered that the situation necessitated military action. He would naturally employ every means to avoid a campaign, but should he be forced to attack these contingents which had invaded the protectorate territory, he would do so most energetically, with adequate forces, and would drive them back to the Spanish zone, to which they belonged. Marshal Lyautey said that he considered the existing situation in Spanish Morocco to be full of menacing possibilities, and he was firmly convinced that only by .close co-operation between France and Britain could the increasing danger be avoided. It was most important that the anarchy existing in the Spanish zone should be ended, and it was Spain’s duty to end it. He had reason to believe that it was also the desire of the British Government to see Spain strong in Riff, and lie thought Spain could count on the moral support of both France and England in her difficult task.