At the same time, Abdullah is organizing resistance against the French in Syria, arousing both French ire and British consternation.

Assembling a motley force of about two thousand tribesmen, he moves north from Mecca, halting in Amman in March 1920.

In October the British high commissioner for Palestine calls a meeting of East Bank sheikhs at As Salt to discuss the future of the region, whose security is threatened by the incursion of Wahhabi sectarians (adherents of a puritanical Muslim sect who stress the unity of God) from Najd in the Arabian Peninsula. 

It becomes clear to the British that Abdullah, who remains in Amman, could be accepted as a ruler by the Bedouin tribes and in that way be dissuaded from involving himself in Syria.