Italian Cyrenaica

Italian Cyrenaica was the eastern part of Libya ruled by Italy after the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912. Italy seized the coastal towns, including Benghazi, but for years controlled little beyond the ports. The Sanussi order, led by Omar al-Mukhtar, waged a long guerrilla resistance from the interior and the Jebel Akhdar. The coastal plain around Benghazi and the uplands of the Jebel Akhdar formed two very different zones of control, and Italian authority often meant little outside the garrison towns. In the 1920s the fascist governor Luigi Bongiovanni and his successors moved to break this resistance by force, building roads and forts and cutting the population off from the fighters. After a campaign of deportations and concentration camps in which many thousands died, Omar al-Mukhtar was captured and executed in 1931. Italian control was then extended across the whole territory. In 1934 Cyrenaica was joined with Tripolitania and Fezzan to form the colony of Italian Libya, ending its separate existence.