An encounter between a landing party from H.M.S. 'Hyacinth '
and Arab gun-runners took place at Dibai, in the Persian Gulf, last Saturday, when five seamen were killed and nine wounded. The natives are believed to have lost about forty. Dibai is in the independent sultanate of Oman, or Muscat, on the Arabian coast. Gun-running is a profitable industry along the " Pirate Coast," as it is called, and the tribes on the North-West Frontier of India and the Afghans are too liberally supplied with weapons from this quarter. The Sultan of Muscat is friendly with the Indian Govern- ment, but probably has little control over the gun-runners. Last November the Proserpine ' was engaged with gun- runners not far from the frontier of Baluchistan. It is most important that gun-running should be kept within the strictest possible bounds ; the better the tribes are armed the more menacing they become. We can look for little assistance from other countries, though the interest of some in suppressing the trade is real, if indirect. In the past our action has been perhaps too spasmodic. We are now helped by wireless telegraphy, which is a particular annoyance to the gun- runners.
