Not until late in December, 1917, did it become known that the Arabs had been quite active during the latter part of November, 1917, though definite news was lacking concerning their activities during October, 1917, and the early part of November, 1917.
Between November 8 and November 12, 1917, a section of Arabs attacked the railway from Deraa to Amman, that part of the Hedjaz line running parallel to the Jordan. Two locomotives, a number of coaches and trucks, and a bridge were destroyed, and traffic was interrupted for six days.
On November 11, 1917, a train in which Djemal Pasha was traveling to Jerusalem was blown up with a mine and destroyed. Djemal escaped, but his aid-de-camp and the staff officers accompanying him were killed. The Turkish casualties amounted to 120, while the Arabs lost seven killed and four wounded.
On November 22, 1917, a Turkish lancer patrol from Maan attacked some Arab tents in the neighborhood of Batra, fifteen miles southwest of Maan, but were driven off with losses. Arab forces later took the posts of Fuweila and Basta, southwest and west of Maan respectively. These points had been fortified by the Turks in August last in the hope of confining the Arabs in the Akaba area.
A few days later it was announced that an Arab force under Sherif Feisal, son of the King of Hedjaz, had destroyed a troop train south of Tebuk, on the Hedjaz Railway, some 350 miles north of Medina.
The whole of the Turkish detachment in the train were killed or captured, amongst the former being Suleiman Pasha Rifada, paramount chief of the Billi tribe. Three hundred rifles were captured as well as a large quantity of ammunition, also £24,000 Turkish in gold.
On January 11, 1918, it was announced that the Arab forces in Hedjaz had made a successful raid on the railway some twenty miles south of Maan, and that still farther to the south the entire Turkish garrison of an important post on the railway had fallen into the hands of the Arabs.
A few days later the Arabs occupied the Turkish post of Tafile, forty-five miles north-northeast of Maan and eighteen miles southeast of the Dead Sea, capturing the entire garrison. On January 26, 1918, a body of Turkish troops moving on Tafile from El Kerak, twenty miles northeast of the southern end of the Dead Sea, was routed on the Seil-el-Hesa, eleven miles north of Tafile, by the Arabs, and driven back in disorder with the loss of many prisoners, a mountain gun, and seven machine guns.
On the same day another Turkish force advancing westward from Maan was repulsed by Arab troops near Ain Uheid, seven miles west of Maan.
Still farther south, in the Aden sector of Arabia, little of importance transpired between August, 1917, and February, 1918, though the British troops near Aden continued to be in constant contact with the Turks, engaging in numerous outpost and patrol skirmishes.