page_title: Somaliland
section_title: British Somaliland
hierarchical_section_title: Somaliland / History / British Somaliland
caption_attribution_description: English: Buralleh (Buralli) Robleh, Sub-Inspector of Police of Zeila, and General Gordon, Governor of British Somaliland, in Zeila (1921).
context_page_description: Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is a self-declared state, internationally considered to be part of Somalia. The government of the de facto state of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the former British Somaliland protectorate, which, in the form of the briefly independent State of Somaliland, united as scheduled on 1 July 1960 with the Trust Territory of Somaliland to form the Somali Republic.
  Somaliland lies in northwestern Somalia, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden. It is bordered by the remainder of Somalia to the east, Djibouti to the northwest, and Ethiopia to the south and west. Its claimed territory has an area of 176,120 square kilometres, with approximately 4 million residents. The capital and the largest city is Hargeisa, with a population of around 1,500,000 residents.
  In 1988, the Siad Barre government began a crackdown against the Hargeisa-based Somali National Movement and other militant groups, which were among the events that led to the Somali Civil War. The conflict left the country's economic and military infrastructure severely damaged.
context_section_description: The Somaliland Campaign, also called the Anglo-Somali War or the Dervish War, was a series of military expeditions that took place between 1900 and 1920 in the Horn of Africa, pitting the Dervishes led by Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (nicknamed the "Mad Mullah") against the British. The British were assisted in their offensives by the Ethiopians and Italians. During the First World War (1914–1918), Hassan also received aid from the Ottomans, Germans and, for a time, from the Emperor Iyasu V of Ethiopia. The conflict ended when the British aerially bombed the Dervish capital of Taleh in February 1920.
  The Fifth Expedition of the Somaliland campaign in 1920 was the final British expedition against the Dervish forces of Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (often called the "Mad Mullah" derogatorily by British ), the Somali religious leader. Although the majority of the combat took place in January of the year, British troops had begun preparations for the assault as early as November 1919. The British forces included elements of the Royal Air Force and the Somaliland Camel Corps. After three weeks of battle, Hassan's Dervishes were defeated, bringing an effective end to their 20-year resistance.
  The Italian conquest of British Somaliland was a military campaign in East Africa, which took place in August 1940 between forces of Italy and those of several British and Commonwealth countries. The Italian expedition was part of the East African Campaign.
caption: Buralleh (Buralli) Robleh,  Sub-Inspector of Police of Zeila, and General Gordon, Governor of British Somaliland, in Zeila (1921).
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