File 756/1917 Pt 2-3 ‘ARAB BULLETIN Nos 66-114’ [‎187r] (382/834)

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The Shamiyah.
j" der dHte Jllne 5 ’ that of the Amarat
cniets, iahad ibn Hadhdhal is now camped near Shetliathali but
intends mcvmg northwards towards Ramadi. He has the bulk
His nenhew' 'f ! ‘l 1 "'!’ “n few Fedaan ar,d Sibaa tribesmen.
5iJt:hf:t il rW^’i w i‘ h M ° hammed Twkiei-
oft J / i n Tto Shabeikhah, and Ajenni es-Saadun is not far
fl A • I* 18 thou S ht that ]ack of food will soon drive
Sheikh t0 US 0U ‘t 6 Eu P hrates - A s for the Fedaan,
and Baihdad to hflS f one .. I ? orth a g alu to Qasr Amaj, west of Hit,
•to? Salii ?s d Sto r S - le ' T1 ^ 0I ' paSS out ° r its s P here - Saud
mar come to t bh to 18 son f "' llere llaar Zub «r- "’here the Slmm-
Aiil wb 1 h ™. m lar g e numbers; and Sheikh Aqab ibn
Ajil, who has sent his son to us (see above), fears Sand will
off the Abdah and Smjarah Shammaris now with the
toi-mer. Sand wrote about two months ago to King Husein
offering to leave Ins brother, Mohammed, in charge near Basra
and to join the sherifial forces. He complained that, owino- to false
reports, Ins subsidy had been reduced by us, and was now “not
enough for rice and semn" Nuri es-Shaalan is firmly on the
fence taking bribes from, or robbing, both Arabs and Turks,
and tear of him, rather than any action of the Turks, is said to
. f ee P ln g Rashid ibn Leilali from attemptino' to -join the Emir
m Hail. J
Idrisi Campaign.
A letter has been received from Seyyid Mustapha el-Idrisi,
dated at Laheiya, May 22. In this he gives the Idrisi account
of the fight at Mur in April {see p. 134). His total of Idrisi
losses confirms what were reported before, and increases the
figures—thirty-six, including three sheikhs, having been killed,
and seventy wounded. But on the enemy side he now states
that eighty-four Turks were killed, including five officers. Inclu
sive of Arab auxiliaries, the Turks lost, he says, 108 killed, and
had a large number of wounded, including three officers. There
seems no reason to question these figures.
Seyyid Mustapha further reports a fight at Hajur, about the
middle of May, in which Idrisi lost nine killed, while the Turks
had twenty-five of their own number and ten of their Arabs
killed, and two Turks were taken prisoners. He adds that daily
skirmishes occur in which the enemy always loses three or four
killed. The Vali, Mahmud Nadim, returned to Sanaa from the
fighting zone, says Mustapha, greatly depressed, and the impres
sion in Yemen is that the Turks are becoming very weak. Idrisi
proposed to make a general attack about May 27 : but, if he
carried out his intention, we have had no news of it. The
rumour of an Idrisi defeat, which was current in Jiddah about a
fortnight ago, referred to a date prior to that of the proposed
offensive, and is now shown to have been baseless by Seyyid
Mustapha’s letter.