Word: khartoum
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...tradition, had whipped his dervish followers into a frenzied jihad (holy war) against the Sudan's Egyptian rulers. Since Egypt was under British occupation, Britain sent solemn, Bible-reading General Charles George ("Chinese") Gordon* to restore order. Instead, the fanatical dervishes bottled up the undermanned British garrison in Khartoum, hacked Gordon to death with their swords...
Thirteen years later, another British army, under General Horatio Herbert Kitchener (thenceforth known as K of K, Kitchener of Khartoum), set out to avenge Gordon. As the dervishes tried to cut their way out in a ferocious surge known as the Battle of Omdurman, a young cavalry officer named Winston Churchill got in the way, nearly lost his life. Dervish power was smashed...
Last week the dervish spirit was astir again in Khartoum. So was the Mahdi's son. Sir Sayed Abdul Rahman Mohamed Ahmed El Mahdi Pasha lacked his father's messianic complex. But he rode the wave of nationalism that was surging from North Africa to Indonesia. Sir Sayed threatened a second jihad if Egypt won its demand for outright annexation of the Sudan (now an Anglo-Egyptian condomimium...
From the Sudan south, the Central African bastion would widen out. From it, the British would be able to slam the gates of Suez on any aggressor. They could rake an enemy in the Persian oilfields with rockets launched in Kenya or Khartoum. No threat to a peaceful Soviet Union, the African girdle might be a potent barrier to Russian expansion across the Middle East toward India...
...Rocket-line distance from Khartoum toTeheran (on the Persian plateau, Alexander the Great's classic Indian invasion route) is only 1,700 miles. Longest wartime rocket flight was about 200 miles, by a German V2. The V-2 launched in New Mexico last September had a theoretical range of 1,500 miles. Designed, but still dependent on solution of fuel problems, are 3,500-mile rockets. Other rocket-line distances from the African girdle: Khartoum to Suez, 950 miles; Kenya to Moscow, 4,000 miles; Lake Chad to Munich, 2,200 miles; Khartoum to Sofia, 1,800 miles...