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De Vecchi, the governor of Italian Somaliland, had to reassess his plans as he was being humiliated on many fronts. After one year of exerting full force he could not yet manage to gain a result over the sultanate. In spite of the fact that the Italian navy sealed the sultanate’s main coastal entrance, they could not succeed in stopping them from receiving arms and ammunition through it. It was only early 1927 when they finally succeeded in shutting the northern coast of the sultanate, thus cutting arms and ammunition supplies. By this time, the balance had tilted to the Italian’s side, and in January 1927 they began to attack with a massive force, capturing Iskushuban, at the heart of the sultanate. Hersi Boqor unsuccessfully attacked and challenged the Italians at Iskushuban. To demoralise the resistance, ships were ordered to raze and bombard the sultanate’s coastal towns and villages. In the interior the Italian troops confiscated livestock. By the end of the 1927 the Italians had nearly taken control of the sultanate. 

Soon after the First World War, the Italians realized that the shallow bay of Hafun, which had a long, low beach along the mainland side, was a perfect place for a large salt works.  The Società Saline e Industrie della Somalia Settentrionale  built on both sides of the peninsula of Ras Hafun ( Hafun and Hurdiyo) what would be the largest salt-works in the world. The firm, constituted in Milan in 1922, built a town for 5,000 inhabitants called Dante. Construction began in 1922 and was completed by 1929. In 1931, production began at the salt factory and soon the enterprise at Ras Hafun was exporting by sea over three hundred thousand tons of salt a year for industrial use. In 1941, during World War II, the British, who had lost British Somaliland to an Italian attack, sent north into Somalia from Kenya an expeditionary force that captured all of Italian East Africa and in the process destroyed the salt works.