IOR/R/15/5/46

The file contains correspondence, telegrams, statements and notes regarding incidents of arms and ammunition smuggling incidents in Kuwait.

The file includes:

• accounts from the Commander of the Persian Gulf Division regarding rifles carried by pearling dhows;
• request for all vessels leaving the port of Kuwait to be provided with a permission to carry arms, countersigned by the local rulers and the Political Agent (several copies of the form in Arabic on folios 15-20);
• correspondence on weapons owned by Ibn Saud and confiscated near Sharjah;
• smuggling of American rifles in the Persian Gulf;
• arrest and deportation of an arms smuggler from Muscat;
• the establishment of a role of Informer at Kuwait, to update the Intelligence Officer for the Persian Gulf, and extracts from the Intelligence Officer's Arms Traffic Diary;
• price list for French arms for sale at Muscat.

The principal correspondents are: British India Steam Navigation Company, the Amir of Nejd, Abdul Aziz bin Saud (Āl Sa‘ūd, ‘Abd al-‘Azīz bin ‘Abd al-Raḥmān bin Fayṣal); the Rulers of Kuwait: Mubarak us Subah (Shaikh Mubarak bin Ṣabāḥ Āl Ṣabāḥ) and his successor, Shaikh Salim bin Mubarak Al Sabah; the Foreign Office; the Commander of the Persian Gulf Division; the Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, Percy Cox; the Political Agent at Muscat; the Political Agents in Kuwait, Captain William Henry Irvine Shakespear, followed by William George Grey.

There are letters in Arabic within the file, mostly with English translation.