Kaocen Revolt

Part of the Tuareg rebellions and World War I (concurrent)

Tuareg warriors, photographed 1906.

Date	1916–1917
Location	Northern Niger
Result	Rebellion defeated

Belligerents

France

French West Africa

Tuareg guerrillas

Supported by:

Senussi

France

Tuareg guerrillas

Supported by:

The Kaocen revolt was a Tuareg rebellion against French colonial rule of the area around the Aïr Mountains of northern Niger during 1916–17.

Ag Mohammed Wau Teguidda Kaocen (1880–1919) was the Tuareg leader of the rising against the French. An adherent to the militantly anti-French Sanusiya Sufi religious order, Kaocen was the Amenokal (chief) of the Ikazkazan Tuareg confederation. Kaocen had engaged in numerous, mostly indecisive, attacks on French colonial forces from at least 1909. When the Sanusiya leadership in the Fezzan oasis town of Kufra (in modern Libya) declared a Jihad against the French colonialists in October 1914, Kaocen rallied his forces. Tagama, the Sultan of Agadez had convinced the French military that the Tuareg confederations remained loyal, and with his help, Kaocen's forces placed the garrison under siege on 17 December 1916. Tuareg raiders, numbering over 1,000, led by Kaocen and his brother Mokhtar Kodogo, and armed with repeating rifles and one cannon seized from the Italians in Libya, defeated several French relief columns. They seized all the major towns of the Aïr, including Ingall, Assodé, and Aouderas, placing what is today northern Niger under rebel control for over three months.

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