The Wahhabi Ikhwan movement, supported by King Ibn Saud as a tool of territorial expansion, advanced northwards and westwards and arrived at the undemarcated borders of Transjordan in the summer of 1922.

The Ikhwan were a cross-tribal striking force, whose religious fervour combined with the support of the King proved too strong a military challenge for the Arabian tribes.

[5] The Ikhwan initiated their first attack on Transjordan by massacring the inhabitants of two villages belonging to the tribe of Bani Sakhr, approximately 12 miles south of Amman.

[3] In August 1924, a larger Ikhwan militia force, numbering some 4,500 raiders,[2] travelled 1,600 kilometers from Najd (in modern-day Saudi Arabia) to attack Transjordan, a British protectorate.

Fifteen kilometers south of Amman, the raiders engaged again with the villages of the Bani Sakhr, but were attacked by the British Royal Air Force (RAF).