The Muscat rebellion[4] was an uprising in 1913 led by Sālim bin Rāshid al-Kharūṣī against the authority of the Sultans of Muscat and Oman.[5] The rebels established their own state, the Ibāḍī imamate.[5] Its causes laid in a deep-rooted rivalry between northern and southern tribes of Muscat and Oman.[6] It began in May 1913 in Tanuf.[7] On 5 June, the rebels captured Nizwa,[3] and on 20 June they captured Izki.[3] By this time, the rebels had also surrounded Samail.[3] On 24 June, the rebels captured al-`Awabi.[3] By July, the situation had gotten so dire that the British government sent a small garrison to Natrah to aid the sultan of Muscat, to no avail.[8] In August, the rebels captured Samail.[9] Also in August, the rebels launched an offensive towards the coastal side of al-Jabal al-Akhda, and Nakhl was besieged on the 4th. Nakhl ultimately fell at the beginning of April 1914, after the desertion of several of the imam's reinforcement contingents.[3] In April 1914 the Royal Air Force bombed Barkah and Qaryat to deter rebel attacks on those settlements.[3]