Besides the British and Italians, the Somali forces of the Dervish movement were also embroiled in conflict with the Ethiopian Empire under Menelik II during the Dervish War, beginning with the Dervish raid on Ethiopian held Jijiga in 1900, followed by Ethiopian attacks on the Ogaden. Fighting between the two sides would continue until the newly designated Emperor of Ethiopia, Lij Iyasu, on account of his reported conversion to Islam and sympathies for the Dervish movement, started providing support to Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, the Dervish leader also pejoratively known as the “Mad Mullah”. Iyasu would be deposed by his own countrymen in 1916, while the Dervishes continued to fight British encroachment until 1920.
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