IOR/R/15/5/29

This file contains correspondence related to the British Government's relationship with Ibn Sa'ud [‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal Āl Sa‘ūd].

Specifically, the correspondence relates to Ikhwan raids into Iraqi and Kuwaiti territory, Ibn Sa'ud's inability to stop them and what measures (including military force) should be adopted by the British authorities in response to them.

The principal correspondents in the file are British officials in Iraq, the Political Agency in Kuwait, the Political Residency in Bushire and the Secretary of State for the Colonies in London. Also enclosed are a number of letters exchanged between Ibn Sa'ud and British officials (in Arabic with English translations).

In addition to this correspondence, the file contains the following items:

• a summary of correspondence exchanged between Ibn Sa'ud and the British High Commission in Iraq, October 1926 - November 1927 (folios 69-74);
• a record of conversations between Shaikh Hafiz Wahba (an adviser to Ibn Sa'ud) and British officials, January 1928 (folios 104-111);
• a list of pre-written replies to arguments used by Ibn Saud in his letters regarding the Ikhwan and Iraqi sovereignty (folios 146-164, 209-214);
• a 'Note on the Situation in Najd from Kuwait' written by Lieutenant-Colonel Harold Richard Patrick Dickson, Political Agent in Kuwait, 25 November 1928.