Ely Bannister Soane

Ely Bannister Soane (1881–1923)[1] was a British major, linguist, intelligence agent and writer who is best known for his travels around Kurdistan and Mesopotamia and works on Kurds.

[3] From 1909 to 1913 he worked for Anglo-Persian Oil Company and lived in Baghdad when World War I began.

After being put in jail for a short period, he began working for the British in secret missions.

For a period before he was appointed Vice-consul to Dezful in Iran in 1916, he also edited the Basrah Times, a daily newsheet sponsored by the Chief Political Officer in the British administration in Mesopotamia (Sir Percy Cox) for sale to the troops and local population in the British occupied zone.

[4] He became an advisor for the Kingdom of Kurdistan in 1919[5] after British influence in the region increased as the result of the Ottoman defeat in the war, but he would return to England in 1923 after the Cairo Conference.