مسم - 2 2 - his nomination was a perfunctory affair and lacked real tribal support. Although he was accepted by the Sultan, whostyled him his Representative in the Sharqiyah, he becameincreasingly unpopular. 3. It is impossible to say whether the idea of a revoltoriginatea with its eventual leader, Ibrahim bin Isa, ayounger brother of Salih, or whether Salih and Talib workedit out in Cairo. Perhaps the most likely answer is that,as suggested in paragraph 16 below, the Saudis were sendingthe Omani dissidents home; some of them are said to havehad instructions to lie low in Oman and await Egyptian orSaudi invading forces. Ibrahim, who had never left theSharqiyah, may have taken advantage of these arrivals tofurther his own ambition of supplanting Shaikh Ahmed. Itappears certain, however, that a number of men, somewherebetween 100 and 200, were sent from Dammam by road to Doha,in Qatar, and thence by country craft to Dubai, where theypassed themselves off as workmen returning from employment in Saudi Arabia; they continued to Oman by lorry. This movement was discovered through intelligence contacts cf the Trucial Oman Scouts, who reported the presence of a party of seven armed Omanis, including a relation of Talib. These were quickly arrested by the Dubai Police andinterrogated. As all except this small party were unarmed, it was impossible to distinguish between them and genuinereturning workers, but the seven were duly handed over to the Muscat authorities.4. Meanwhile, there seems to have been an increase in the gun-running which takes place endemically along the Trucialand Batinah coasts; energetic but so far unsuccessful attempts have been made by the Political Agent, TrucialStates and Her Majesty's Forces to put a stop to this. At
