Fezzan is the southwestern region of modern Libya. It is largely desert, but broken by mountains, uplands, and dry river valleys (wadis) in the north, where oases enable ancient towns and villages to survive deep in the otherwise inhospitable Sahara Desert. The term originally applied to the land beyond the coastal strip of Africa proconsularis, including the Nafusa and extending west of modern Libya over Ouargla and Illizi. As these Berber areas came to be associated with the regions of Tripoli, Cirta or Algiers, the name was increasingly applied to the arid areas south of Tripolitania.
Ghat is the capital of the Ghat District in the Fezzan region of southwestern Libya, located just east of the Algerian border.
Murzuk, Murzuq, Murzug or Merzug is an oasis town and the capital of the Murzuq District in the Fezzan region of southwest Libya. It lies on the northern edge of the Murzuq Desert, an extremely arid region of ergs or great sand dunes which is part of the greater Sahara Desert.
Ghat is one of the districts of Libya. Its capital is Ghat. To the west, Ghat borders two provinces of Algeria: Tamanghasset in the far southwest, and Illizi Province. It also has a short border with the Agadez Department of Niger in the far south. Domestically, it borders Wadi Al Shatii in north, Wadi Al Hayaa in northeast and Murzuq in the east.
The Fezzan campaign was a military campaign conducted by the National Liberation Army to take control of southwestern Libya during the Libyan Civil War. During April to June 2011, anti-Gaddafi forces gained control of most of the eastern part of the southern desert region during the Cyrenaican desert campaign. In July, Qatrun changed to anti-Gaddafi control on 17 July and back to pro-Gaddafi control on 23 July. In late August, anti- and pro-Gaddafi forces struggled for control of Sabha.
The aftermath of the 2011 Libyan civil war has been characterized by marked change in the social and political order of Libya after the overthrow and killing of Muammar Gaddafi in the civil war that was fought in Libya in 2011. The country has been subject to ongoing proliferation of weapons, Islamic insurgencies, sectarian violence, and lawlessness, with spillovers affecting neighboring countries including Mali.
Following the end of the First Libyan Civil War, which overthrew Muammar Gaddafi, there was violence involving various militias and the new state security forces. This violence has escalated into the Second Libyan Civil War (2014–2020).
The Libyan Army is the brand for a number of separate military forces in Libya, which were under the command of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Government of National Unity.
The 2012 Sabha conflict started in the aftermath of the Libyan civil war, and involved armed clashes between the Tubu and Abu Seif tribes in Sabha, a city of almost 100,000 in the region of Fezzan, Libya. It happened after February 2012 clashes in Kufra, that involved the Tubu people, too. On 27 March, Jomode Elie Getty charged the clashes as "genocide". A Paris-based Tabu official, Jomode Elie Getty, who was an official with the NTC but resigned on Tuesday, accused the NTC of siding with Arabs in attacks on Tabu tribesmen. He called for U.N. intervention.
The Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya is a group created in mid-2007 to defend the rights and interests of the Toubou people in Libya. It is led by Issa Abdel Majid Mansur, a Libyan Toubou tribal leader, and has its headquarters in Oslo, Norway. The group, which had participated in the Libyan Civil War on the NTC side, was disbanded in August 2011, with the fall of Tripoli.
Gaddafi loyalism, in a wider political and social sense also known as the Green resistance, consists of sympathetic sentiment towards the overthrown government of Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed in October 2011, and his Third International Theory. Despite Muammar Gaddafi's death, his legacy and Jamahiriya ideology still maintains a popular appeal both inside and outside Libya into the present day. Regardless, the Western sentiment has largely been that this continued support may contribute to some of the ongoing violence in Libya.
The Libyan crisis is the current humanitarian crisis and political-military instability occurring in Libya, beginning with the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which led to two civil wars, foreign military intervention, and the ousting and death of Muammar Gaddafi. The first civil war's aftermath and proliferation of armed groups led to violence and instability across the country, which erupted into renewed civil war in 2014. The second war lasted until October 23, 2020, when all parties agreed to a permanent ceasefire and negotiations.
The Government of National Accord was an interim government for Libya that was formed under the terms of the Libyan Political Agreement, a United Nations–led initiative, signed on 17 December 2015. The agreement was unanimously endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, which welcomed the formation of a Presidency Council for Libya and recognized the Government of National Accord as the sole legitimate executive authority in Libya. On 31 December 2015, Chairman of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh Issa declared his support for the Libyan Political Agreement. The General National Congress has criticized the GNA on multiple fronts as biased in favor of its rival parliament the House of Representatives.
This is a detailed timeline of the Libyan civil war (2014–2020) which lasted from 2014 to 2020.
On 18 May 2017, an attack was launched by militia men of the town of Misrata and Benghazi Defense Brigades against the Brak al-Shati Airbase controlled by LNA forces. LNA sources claimed 141 people, including 103 soldiers and numerous civilians were killed as a result of the raid. The base was completely overrun and partially destroyed along with numerous aircraft in the base. Accusations of executions of surrendering forces led to international condemnation of GNA forces.
In late January 2019, the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Marshal Khalifa Haftar launched an offensive to take control of the city of Sabha and the rest of southern Libya from the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and local factions. Officially, the LNA announced that the reason for the operation was to remove terrorists, Chadian rebel groups, and to secure the border, but it has expanded Haftar's territorial control and acquired him oil fields near Sabha. It has also restarted some interethnic conflicts as the LNA has allied with local Arab tribes, while the Tuareg and Toubou tribal militias are loyal to the GNA.
The Ubari conflict was a territorial dispute between the Tuareg and Tubu tribes over control of the town of Ubari, located near the oasis town of Sabha, Libya.
In 2016, the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT) and the Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic (CCMSR) began a rebellion against the Chadian government. From their rear bases in southern Libya, FACT and CCMSR have launched offensives and raids into Northern Chad seeking to overthrow the government of former president Idriss Déby, who had been in power since a December 1990 coup. Other rebel groups are also involved in the insurgency, though to a lesser extent.
Ali Kanna Sulayman is a Libyan lieutenant general of Tuareg origin. He was the commander of Muammar Gaddafi's southern forces in the First Libyan Civil War. After the end of the Fezzan campaign, he fled to Agadez and helped other Gaddafi loyalists, most notably air force commander Ali Sharif Al-Rifi, escape to Niger.
The Ouled Slimane are an Arab people and tribe originating from the Fezzan region of modern-day Libya. Populations of Ouled Slimanes are also present in Chad and eastern Niger.
Libyan Ground Forces (GNA)
Toubou Front for the Salvation of Libya (Since 2019)
Libyan National Army (HoR)
