their respective spheres of influence, to the east of which would most likely have been the westernmost reaches of Japan's own Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. There was a power struggle between Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, ex-Prime Minister of Iraq, for the control and political objectives of Arab units (also known as "Legion Freier Araber" or "Arabian Korps"). It was sent to the Caucasus region in September 1942 for the planned invasion of the Arab lands and saw action against the Red Army. This planning did not advance much further than preliminary discussions and paper planning, due to the advance of Red Army forces during the war. Historian Norman Rich asserts that the short duration of the German occupation in the Caucasus means that the policies which the Germans implemented give little indication as to the long-term future of the region if it had been brought under firm Axis control. Turkish involvement Hitler's strategic thinking delegated Turkey a role of an ally protecting Germany's southern flank against the remnants of the defeated USSR. On 17 March 1941, Hitler stated in a discussion with Franz Halder and Adolf Heusinger that Turkey was to receive territory in the Caucasus (perhaps the Caucasus as a whole) as a reward for helping the Axis, although the territories were to be 'exploited' by Germany. In August 1941, Hitler proposed to the Turkish Ambassador in Berlin Hüsrev Gerede that Turkey should annex the Turkic areas of the Soviet Union. In mid-1942, Franz von Papen, the German Ambassador in Ankara, was challenged further by Prime Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu and Foreign Minister Numan Menemencioğlu on the future of the USSR's Turkic minorities. Turkish plans featured the establishment of a series of buffer states along the future Turkish-German border and a sphere of influence extending over these states. Hitler was, however, not ready to make territorial concessions to the country before it fully committed itself to the Axis camp. Projected territorial divisions The Reichskommissariat Kaukasien was planned to be administratively divided between the following seven Generalkommissariate. These were sub-divided into a number of Sonderkommissariaten ("special districts") and Kreiskommissariate, and those in turn into Raions. The overall administrative seat was to be in Tbilisi/Tiflis. Generalkommissariat Georgien Capital: Tiflis 20 Kreiskommissariate (75 Raions) Sonderkommissariat Adscharien Sonderkommissariat Abchasien Sonderkommissariat Südossetien Generalkommissariat Aserbeidschan Capital: Baku 30 Kreiskommissariate (87 Raions) Sonderkommissariat Nachitschewan Generalkommissariat Kuban Capital: Krasnodar 30