Dhulbahante garesa

The Dhulbahante garesas of Jidali & Taleh

A Dhulbahante garesa is an anti-colonial castle, citadel, palace or fortress built during the Scramble for Africa period (1884 - 1914), of which twenty-seven such structures were built during the reign of 16th Dhulbahante garaad Diiriye Guure for administrative provinces such as Shiikhyaale to counter European and Abyssinian colonialism.

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• ... complete with ‘Machicouli’ galleries, which rendered every means of ingress subject to an enfilading fire, and these he also began to construct elsewhere. He had possession of large areas of the hinterland. If defence reigned supreme, then his enemies must now come to attack him in his fortresses..
  • Roy Irons, Churchill and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland (2013)

• Archer, telling the assembled war gods about the Mullah’s fortress at Tale, suggested that there were: …two views as to the nature of the operations which should be undertaken. (1) The first involved close co-operation between the Camel Corps and Air – Craft
  • Geoffrey Archer, Churchill and the Mad Mullah of Somaliland (2013)

• The majority of the stock was grazing round the Dervish forts at Halin and Gerrowei, about 150 miles from our advanced post at Eil Dab, and were protected by some hundreds of Illaloes (i.e. scouts) covering our line of advance down the Nogal Valley.
  • Douglas Jardine, Mad Mullah of Somaliland (1923)