Were the pirates in british somaliland or Italian Somalia?

Answer 1

Yes. There have been Pirates along the Somali coast in the Gulf of Aden going back to early history. The great historian Ptolemy in 150 BC reported inhabitants with "piratical "tendencies' inhabited the region in 150 BC. More recently, in 1854, British officials in Aden warned the British explorer Richard Burton of Pirates along the coast. Indeed, British occupation of British Somalia was partially based on the need to eliminate piracy. That was the same reason for the British occupation of Malaysia. And, for your information, it was the French occupancy of North Africa in the 1830s that finally ended Barbary piracy, not the relatively feeble US Naval attacks on the shores of Tripoli.