MESOPOTAMIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 February 1916, Page 5

MESOPOTAMIA.

*RAB SCAVENGERS. HANGING OX TO BRITISH FORCE. ' Times and Sydney Sun Services. London, Feb. 22. • Mr. Candler states 'that a thousand Arab irregulars hang on the outskirts of the Mesopotamia expedition, even when it is inarching, and kill for pillage, swooping down on isolated detachments, stripping the dead, digging up graves, and following like jackals in the rear. Two jibbing transport ponies were unyoked and the cart abandoned, and the Arabs, emboldened by the hope of loot, were down upon it before the rearguard, which was eight hundred yards away, could dose in. Tt is difficult, owing to the mirage, to tell where they arc. The hazes in Mesopotamia magnify everything. The Arabs haunt the battlefields for days, and spare the wounded only when Sheikhs or Turkish officers are. in command. They murder and pillage even friendly Turks. Important Turkish prisoners said to General Aylmer: "We should join hands and end these scavengers and settle our differences afterwards." The Arabs are light weights, carrying a bag of dates and a small ration for their horse, and never wait for our cavalry, encumbered with six stone of equipment, to get amongst them, unless they believe we are badly outnumbered. In a skirmish near Shaiba, tho Arabs thought we were ambuscaded and at a disadvantage in the deep mud, and charged. We had 450 horsemen and two sections of horse artillery, and wheeled and charged their thousands. For a 'minute there was the clash of sword and lance. Then they' broke out and our artillery did bloody execution.