I Do Not Worship What You Worship: The Anti-Muslim Origins of Aerial Bombardment
Part of "big sky/넓은 하늘" (December 2025)
Some of the first places to be bombed by air were Muslim-majority regions in Southwest Asia and North Africa. These areas were targeted by Italy, Spain, and France, as well as the British Royal Air Force (RAF), one of the most notorious perpetrators of aerial bombing in the early twentieth century.
Following WWI, RAF faced what is, to colonizers, an existential threat: defunding. This changed following an aerial bombardment campaign by the RAF in the Somali Peninsula in 1920. The apparent success of this pacification project was a notable factor in the adoption of aerial bombing as a standard tactic of British colonial rule.
What set this tactic apart was the low cost, from a British perspective, of achieving imperial order. Aerial bombing was intended to make the retaliation for resistance so severe that no one would attempt it, resulting in deterrence through disproportionate force.
It didn't work. But the characterization of aerial bombing as a cost-effective tactic for administering colonial holdings persisted, resulting in the funnelling of resources to aerial weaponry and the normalization of bombing by air. Colonizers' inability to appreciate the value of Muslim life was central to this cost-benefit analysis. In other words, one reason it became 'normal' to bomb people was because it was normal to bomb Muslim people from 1911 to 1920.
This zine is made up of archival records about some of the bombing campaigns which took place during this period. By bringing together these sources, this zine seeks to understand the anti-Muslim origins of aerial bombardment and honour people whose humanity had to be ignored for the practice of aerial bombing to emerge in the first place.
Segment 1:
IMAGE: Two men on a camel ride ahead of a man on foot in a desert, with palm trees in the background TEXT: Tagiura and Ain Zara, Libya (1912): Bombed by Italy during the Italo-Turkish War SOURCE: Domenico Tumiati (1911), "Tripolitania" <https://archive.org/details/tripolitania00tumi/page/n39/mode/2up> at page 41/452 of the PDF.
Segment 2:
"...A minor campaign in 1916 against the autonomous sultanate of Darfur had its origins in the deteriorating relations between the sultan, 'Ali Dinar, and the Sudan Government prior to the war, and in Anglo-French rivalry...
...While the Sudan Government had decided as early as August 1915 to move against 'Ali Dinar, favourable circumstances were presented only in February 1916, when the sultan reinforced a border garrison, thus providing the Sudan Government with the pretext for a war which had become inevitable.
A force of between two and three thousand troops, supported by three aeroplanes, was concentrated in Kordofan and advanced with difficulty, owing to the extreme heat and a shortage of water, to a point about twelve miles from the sultan's capital at El Fasher. After a battle the Fur army withdrew, and El Fasher was occupied on 23 May..."
"...On 23rd February, Mr. Winston Churchill, as Secretary of State for War...went on to outline a scheme whereby the chief command in Mesopotamia would be vested in an officer of the Air Force...
I had taken part in bombing certain Kurdish villages whose occupants had murdered Poli-tical Officers, and in machine-gunning Shaikh Mahmud's insurgents, and had thus learnt something of the possibilities latent in this new arm; the idea of controlling 'Iraq from the air...
It is undeniable that the decision to control 'Iraq by means of the Royal Air Force made it possible to retain the Mandate; under any other system the cost of the garrison, how-ever reduced in numbers, would have been pro-hibitive, and its efforts ineffectual owing to the great length of communications involv-ed. The Royal Air Force, on the other hand, could not have dealt effectively with the orgy of riot and rebellion in 1920, and it is fortunate they were not called upon to do so."
IMAGE: Two blimps drop bombs on a desert landscape; the bombs explode
TEXT: "The first duty of the Royal Air Force is to garrison the British Empire. And it was in India, Mesopotamia, and all points east and south that independent air power now began to show its great potential."
"The offensive flights were accomplished by dropping bombs on the enemy.
Unfortunately, the weather conditions did not always permit flights during action. The dropping of bombs, while they did no material damage, had a wonderful moral effect. Our troops were the first in the world to use this method of offense. Excellent photographs were also taken by the air squad, which were highly important to our intelligence depart-ment and for the compilation of maps...The value of this experiment, which Italy had the fortune to effect for the first time in his-tory, will furnish a treasure for the future."
"Between the 25th-29th November three more Bristo Fighter aeroplanes were lent to the Force and a specially intensive programme of aerial bombardment was made, a daily average of over 10,000 lbs. of bombs was dropped but in spite of these endeavours at no time did it appear possible that the Mahsuds would submit from the effect of air operations alone...
A noticeable feature of the air operations was the readiness of the inhabitants sheltering in the vicinity to re-enter their villages after a raid...A possible solution for this is the provision of bombs with delay action fuzes of various lengths...
Some form of incendiary bomb would therefore probably be more effective than those employed during these operations which have done little harm except to dry fodder and similar inflammable materials. The total weight of bombs dropped on Kaniguram, a perfect target for aerial bombardment, was about 16 tons, which was out of all proportion to the material damage done..."
"The aerial bombardment of the 21st January had taken the Mullah entirely by surprise. Not only was he unaware that any expedition was being prepared against him, but, being entirely ignorant of the existence of aeroplanes, he had naturally made no arrangements to meet such an attack."
"...In the course of the raid, three direct hits with 112-lb. bombs and four with 20-lb. bombs were obtained on the main position ; and one 20-lb. bomb was dropped on the Mullah's personal fort. But the material damage done was negligible. The machines then flew low, machine-gunning and setting fire to the Dervish huts inside and outside the fortifications with incendiary bombs. Fanned by a north-easterly wind the conflagration became general. Despite the terrible novelty of attack from the air, and the havoc that surrounded them, the Dervish garrison, to their credit be it said, valiantly returned the aeroplanes' fire."