A Brief History of the Arab Revolt

The war in the desert was a hard struggle. Lawrence encouraged raiding against the railway lines that supplied ottoman forces, while trying to keep his partners out of reach of patrols or larger formations. The campaign was thus one of hit and run raids, dynamiting and sniping. Crucially, the arab fighters could not be entirely certain of the allegiance of their own people, so there was a constant threat of betrayal. Alignments in the campaign were fluid. This was a conflict where maintaining ral and local intelligence were critical to survival.