EVENTS IN SYRIA

Evening Star, Issue 23689, 24 September 1940, Page 8

EVENTS IN SYRIA

SITUATION NEARING CLIMAX TEMPERS BOILING UP AGAINST ITALIANS OPEN HOSTILITY BY ALL SECTS Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, September 22. The ‘ Daily Mail’s ’ Cairo correspondent says the situation in Syria appears to he nearing a climax. Tempers in Syria and Lebanon are boiling up as the Italian Disarmament Commission Hits about the country, carrying on strange backstairs negotiations with the French. The Italians are shunning publicity because of open hostility by all sects. Members of the commission have employed a bodyguard of huge Senegalese since one member was assaulted. The Syrians are convinced that the Italians want first to seize the air bases and then take over the administration of the country. The Syrians and the Lebanese are turning to Iraq as a .possible saviour. Iraq has already formally protested to Vichy and requested the restoration of constitutional government. There is a growing inflationary trend in the note issue of the Syrian State Bank, whose capital is 2,000,000 Syrian pounds. The note issue is already 7,000,000. . Prices are rising rapidly. A BROKEN ARMY. The Cairo correspondent of the ‘ Daily Express ’ says General Weygand’s broken army is becoming smaller every day as Syrian troops, refusing, to participate in surrender, disappear into the desert, taking equipment Italy is trying to obtain. There is a strong movement to revive the ancient plan to link Iraq and Syrian Arabs. Iraq called up a new army class last week, and great diplomatic activity is observed in Bagdad. A message from Vichy states that an official spokesman admitted that as the result of the de Gaulle movement incidents are occurring .practically throughout French Africa. Unrest is intense in Syria, Dahomey, and French mandated Togoland. It is expected that the two last-named will join General de Gaulle. SWING TO DE GAULLE MOVEMENT IN PONDICHERRY PONDICHERRY, September 23. (Received September 24, at 8 a.m.) M. Quiribet, President of the Committee of Free Frenchmen, has formed a sub-committee to recruit volunteers for General de Gaulle. [Pondicherry is the capital of a French colony on the south-eastern coast of India, about 100 miles south of Madras. Founded by the French about 1675, it now has a population of 43,499.]