File 1341/1921 Pt 1 'Khorassan Intelligence Summaries 1921-1922' [‎404r] (455/1080)

SECRET.
INTELLIGENCE SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK ENDING OCTOBER 22nd, 1921.
24,1.
KHORASAN.
Meshed .—The movement of events towards a return to normal conditions,
which seemed possible after the death of Muhammad Taqi Khan, was
interrupted by the attempt at a coup d'etat by Major Ismail Khan which
occurred on Sunday, the 16th. This officer had been worked up into a fine
frenzy by revolutionaries who played upon his emotions—real or simulated—
at the death of Muhammad Taqi Khan.
There was a feeling abroad that there could not be two Kings in Khorasan
and rumour inclined first to the arrest of Major Ismail Khan by Major
Mahmud Khan, the officiating Governor-General, and then to that of Mahmud
Khan by Ismail Khan.
As though to determine the issue between the two, Ismail Khan came
to hear that a representation urging the bringing in closer to Meshed of
Persian Cossack troops lying at Sabzewar had been made by Mahmud Khan.
He thereupon marched a detachment to the Governor-General’s palace and
arrested Mahmud Khan, using personal violence to him. He sent him under
arrest to Turogh Sarai, seven miles from Meshed, where a detachment of some
600 gendarmes, the majority Barbaris, was encamped.
Here the prisoner succeeded in making the troops release him. He
harangued them, saying that he was the appointed representative of Govern
ment ‘ in Khorasan and that if they kept him under arrest they were acting
against that Government. The officer in charge of these troops, piqueted
the guns and machine guns, also the reserve ammunition, and threw in his lot
with the prisoner.
News of these doings reached Ismail Khan in Meshed. He raised 100
gendarme sowars and went off to re-arrest Mahmud Khan. On the way he
was brought up by a Sangar across the road, occupied by a few Kurds and
Barharis under the above-mentioned officer. His escort broke, and fled
back to Meshed and he was advised by the officer to make himself scarce
as his game was played out. He took the hint, returned to Meshed, threw
himself at the feet of the high priest of Khorasan, and took sanctuary in his
house. He was lent a car and escaped south that night, escorted by
the chief of the Birjand police at which place he appears to have
remained.
Thus ended another phase of the troubled history of Khorasan. Subsequent
events in the week call for no record here save only for a threat of further
unrest in the Bakharz and Turbat-i-Sheikh Jam areas.
It may be remembered that Muhammad Taqi Khan’s gendarmes when
operating in that region devastated the country of the flocks, herds, horses,
stores of grain, and other property of the tribes opposing them. The scattered
fighting elements of these last have been returning since the gendarme
detachments were withdrawn and are harrying the country in an attempt to
compensate themselves for their pillaged possessions. The hope of revenge
upon Saiad Murtaza Barbari and his partizans who supported Muhammad Taqi
Khan is acting as another stimulus to these reprisals.
A force of 270 gendarmes, horse and foot, has been sent to the disturbed
areas.
And still the Persian Government does nothing to consolidate its initial
success. No officer has arrived to control and reorganize the now chaotic
Gendarmerie, none to take over the police which is swayed this way and that
h J a different nominee to command every few days. No Governor-General
is found to bring the city back to the ways of sanity and to keep in subjection
the revolutionary elements dwelling and plotting in its midst. No force
is moved near enough to overawe any further attempt at rebellion.
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