The Rif Army 

The Rif army at its in height in 1925 contained 80-120,000 men. These were mainly conscripts who were on active service one week out of four, the men were organised into armed bands called harkas, led by chiefs, called caid.

These harkas were organised as follows, the basic unit was an mia of about 100 men, led by a caid el mia, mia were grouped into a tabor of usually 3-500 men.

Sub units were:

hamsain, 50 men.

hamsain-u-ashreen, 25 men.

t'nash, 12 men.

Most fighting was conducted by this local tribal militia, backed by a small number from the Rif regular force which numbered between 3-6000 men.

The Rif force was an infantry one, horses being unpractical in the mountainous terrain.

Artillery & MG.

The Rif artillery numbered around 350 trained men who were most probably regulars as well.

Arms.

The Rif were well armed with modern weaponry, they had 20,000 French rifles; Chassepot, Gras, St Etienne and Lebel along with 80,000 Spanish and German Mauser rifles. Most were therefore equipped with modern small arms; men also carried a long dagger, which they used in close combat.

These were supplemented with several hundred captured Hotchkiss machine guns and Scneider 65, 75 and 155mm artillery pieces, reported to be around 100-200 guns-more than the artillery could man.