CAPTURE OF MEDINA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19125, 17 September 1925, Page 9

CAPTURE OF MEDINA.

OCCUPATION BY WAHABIS. MAHOMET'S TOMB UNHARMED. A. and N.Z. LONDON. Sept. 15. The Cairo correspondent of the Morning Post states that Wahabis have occupied Medina without gunfire. Mahomet's grave and the mosques are unharmed. , News of the occupation was received from the Medina wireless station. The claim of Hussein, ex-King of the Hedjaz, to the oasis of Khurma led to a conflict of far-reaching consequences. Ibn Sand, Sultan of Nejd, as, leader of the'Wahabis, began a war in 1919. In August, 1922, and August; 1924, Wahabi columns-attacked villages in Trans-Jordan, but were repelled by the Royal Air Force. Ibn Saud had occupied the whole of Desert Arabia at the beginning of 1924, and last September his force captured Taif, the summer capital of the Hedjaz. After a defeat at Hadda, King Hussein abdicated. tHis successor Ali, moved the seat of government to Jedda, and in October last the Wahabis occupied Mecca. In a letter to the London Times a few weeks- ago Hussein expressed a fear that Medina would fall into the hands of the Wahabis and Bedouins, who, he said, would ruin it, as they ruined Mecca, " Remember us in our misfortunes," pleaded Hussein. " Knowing the nobility of the people of Britain, I am sure they will never permit our enemy to ruin Medina, which belongs to the Arabs and Moslems."