Oct 2006, Vol. 151, No. 5

By Damian O’Connor

Between 1901 and 1920, British-led forces were involved in a series of campaigns to defeat militant Islamists operating in the interior of what was then British and Italian Somaliland.

The campaign is instructive not just for the resonance that the phrase ‘militant Islamists’ has today, but also because the particular nature of the fighting sheds light on just how different life is a century on for those who fight the ‘little wars’.

Damian O’Connor is the author of The Life of Sir Bartle Frere (2002).