File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎365r] (738/834)

Khurma.
The Minister of War, Mecca, has forwarded a list of the
Regular Arab officers killed in the fight at Tarabah on May 25.
It includes eleven officers of the rank of Major and upwards,
including Capitaine (Kaimakam in Arab Army) S. Raho of the
French Army, who, it is understood, volunteered to serve with
Emir Abdullah after the evacuation from the Hejaz of the few
French troops he had commanded during the campaign. Emir
Abdullah’s force, the strength of which was about 800, appears
to have been somewhat over-officered, as, in addition to fifty-
seven killed, a certain number were wounded and a few got away.
Since the Nejd-Hejaz armistice, several Ikhwan raids on
Hejaz villages are reported from Jeddah, one of which is said to
have been made on July 1 at Dafinah, about sixty-five miles
north of Asheirah. The Ateibah Sheikh who gave Colonel Wilson
details of the affair stated that Sand ibn Abd el Aziz el Arrafah
and Feisal (cousin and son, respectively, of Ibn Sand) were seen
by him during the fight. He further stated that the Ikhwan
cut the throats of sixteen women and children.
Ibn Sand has promised the Civil Commissioner, Baghdad,
not to make any movements in the direction of Tarabah or
Khurma, nor to allow his subjects to advance towards those
places, provided the Hejaz Government makes no such movement.
He has prohibited his people from performing the pilgrimage
this year, and has announced that he has no intention of doing so
himself. On the other hand, King Husein complains that Ibn
Sand’s agent at Tarabah is attempting to collect Zikat, and this,
in Husein’s view, amounts to a casus belli. The Hejaz Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Emir Abdullah, has informed us that, should
Ibn Sand’s forces approach further into the Hejaz, no resistance
will be offered, and the country will be handed over en bloc to
Ibn Sand. This declaration is probably put forward as an
improvement on the abdication threat which has been repeated
so often that it is now regarded as a matter of Hejaz routine
and suitably ignored.
It is evident from King Husein’s letters that no Arbitration
Commission will be accepted by him which does not receive
orders in advance to adjudicate in his favour.
The present situation is that, whilst King Husein is awaiting
a simple decision that the Khurma district belongs to the Hejaz,
Ibn Baud remains at Riadh anxiously looking forward to our
promised arbitration, the time and form of which, however,
have not yet been decided by His Majesty’s Government.
All efforts to obtain a correct account of the Nejd-Hejaz
Treaty of 1910 have so far failed. Emir Abdullah has not