An askari or ascari (from Somali, Swahili, and Arabic عسكري, ʿaskarī, meaning ‘soldier’ or ‘military’, also ‘police’ in Somali) was a local soldier serving in the armies of the European colonial powers in Africa, particularly in the African Great Lakes, Northeast Africa and Central Africa. The word is used in this sense in English, as well as in German, Italian, Urdu, and Portuguese. In French, the word is used only in reference to native troops outside the French colonial empire. The designation is still in occasional use today to informally describe police, gendarmerie and security guards.
Royal Corps of Colonial Troops
The Royal Corps of Colonial Troops (Italian: Regio Corpo Truppe Coloniali or RCTC) was a corps of the Royal Italian Army, in which all the Italian colonial troops were grouped until the end of World War II in North Africa campaign, In 1940, 256,000 Askaris in the Italian Royal Army were present in the local Italian colonies. Of these, 182,000 had been recruited in Italian East Africa (Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia) and 74,000 in Libya. In January 1941, when Allied forces invaded Italian-occupied Ethiopia in January 1941 most of the locally recruited ascaris deserted. The majority of the Eritrean Ascaris remained loyal until the Italian surrender four months later
They partecipated in the Italian guerilla warfare aganaist UK in Ethiopia between the 1941 and 1943 so they fit the spot, So more than anything this squad should be a guerilla squad
But the Askari earned their fame in guerrilla warfare. They were the most successful out of all only rivaled by Tito’s partisans, performing hit and run tactics destroying convoys and ammunition depots.
They fought for years completely cut off from the rest of Italian forces or supplies.
