The Senussi Campaign took place in north Africa, from November 1915 to February 1917, during the First World War between the British Empire, the Kingdom of Italy and the Senussi. The Senussi were a religious sect resident in Libya and Egypt, who were courted by the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. In the summer of 1915, the Ottomans persuaded the Grand Senussi Ahmed Sharif es Senussi to raise jihad, attack British-occupied Egypt from the west and encourage insurrection in Egypt, to divert British forces from an Ottoman Raid on the Suez Canal  from Palestine.