RAIDS IN IRAQ

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 20 March 1928, Page 5

RAIDS IN IRAQ

IBN SAUD’S ATTITUDE. CONFERENCE WITH BRITISH. 9 OPPORTUNITIES NOT ACCEPTED. (V I'A Hl.B— PB BBS ASSOCIATION —COPYBI OUT Received 10.5 a.m to-day. LONDON', March 19. Tn the House of Commons, the Secretary for the Dominions, the Rt. Hon. L. C. iM. S. Amery, in reply to a question, said that Ibn Saud did not avail himself of several opportunities to meet the British representative. Britain was again suggesting a consultation to clear up the whole Arabian situation. —A.P.A. and “Sun.”

ALARMIST REPORTS DISCREDITED. IBN SAUD’S OPPOSITION TO ERECTION OF FORTRESSES. LONDON, March 19. The Baghdad correspondent of the “Daily Express” states that British officials there discredit alarmist reports that Ibn Saud is organising a massed attack on Iraq. They point out that the tribes have been long accustomed to rely on raids upon the peaceful Bedouin shepherds. Nevertheless it is admitted that. Ibn Saud is ambitious, and has taken vigorous exception to the erection of a; number of small fortresses near the desert wells on the Mesopotamian-Nejd frontier. The fortresses are necessary to deal witii the recalcitrant tribes, whose gravest raids were made on February 19, when 2009 armed Turkish. Riffs, mounted two on a camel, descended on the tribesmen grazing sheep at Jerisham, cut the throats of 26 men and murdered the male children. The Iraq army consists of only 14,000 men. Three hundred fighting aeroplanes are penetrating far into the Nejd country. They are Victoria double-engined bombers, capable of carrying enormous loads of water to the outlying stations near Ur. In response to a military warning of danger from reprisols by aeroplanes, many Bedouins are flying from the frontier to the interior.