Dubat

[1] First raised in July 1924 by Colonel Camillo Bechis, they mainly served as frontier guards[2] and light infantry, developing a reputation as effective fighters.

[3] Dubats were maintained as permanent units and were better trained and armed than the tribal banda irregulars raised as temporary auxiliaries when needed by the Italian authorities in Somalia and other colonies.

They were usually seconded from the six regular Arab-Somali battalions of the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops, recruited in the territories of present-day Somalia and Yemen.

On 5 December 1934, a clash occurred between a detachment of Dubats occupying the Walwal oasis in the Ogaden, and Ethiopian troops escorting a border commission.

On the eve of Italy's entry into World War II, the Dubats underwent reorganisation, becoming more closely integrated with the regular Somali units of the Royal Corps of Colonial Troops.

The 1st Dubat Group subsequently served as part of General De Simone's Column during the successful Italian invasion of British Somaliland in August 1940.

Between 1936 and the late 1950s the British colonial government maintained a force of tribal police known as "Dubas" in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya, bordering Somaliland.

With the courage of their race – fueled by love for the flag and the belief in the higher destinies of Italy in Africa, gave during the war, many proofs of the most brilliant heroism.