IOR/L/PS/12/1447

The volume contains the following Political Intelligence Summaries, compiled by the Aden Protectorate Secretary and sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the Foreign Office:

• 1931, intelligence summary numbers 208-254, under correspondence references P.Z. 559-8047;
• 1932, intelligence summary numbers 255-308, under correspondence references P.Z. 119-7863;
• 1933, intelligence summary numbers 309-359, under correspondence references P.Z. 77-8174;
• 1934, intelligence summary numbers 360-393, under correspondence references P.Z. 113-5281.

The summaries contain information on:

• the Aden Settlement, the Aden Protectorate, the Yemen, and 'Asir;
• tribal disputes and negotiations;
• the movement and activities of foreign nationals and companies within Aden and Yemen, and the arrival of foreign vessels and goods (predominantly Russian, German, Greek, French and Dutch);
• the British relationship with the Imam of Yemen, and the negotiation of the 1934 treaty;
• military action between the Saudi Government and the Yemeni Imam, including details of the 1934 conflict and concluding peace agreement.

In addition to the intelligence summaries the file also contains texts of interviews conducted by the Protectorate Secretary with Yunis Bahari al-Iraqi, a journalist (ff 453-54, 461); a report on the meeting of M Shaukat Ali with the Imam of Yemen regarding Yemeni-Indian relations (ff 369-70); and details of an interview with Carl August Rathjens (1887-1966), the German ethnologist, geographer and historiographer (ff 400-06). The intelligence summaries contain several references to Rathjens, including comments on the movement of archaeological objects through Yemen.

The file includes a divider which gives a list of correspondence references found within the file by year. These are found at the end of the correspondence (folios 4-6).