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24-621: The Ménaka area was a center of Ag El Insar Firhoun 's Malian rising of larger 1916 Tuareg Rebellion , and was a government garrison town in the 1961–1964 , 1990–1995 , and the 2007–2009 Tuareg Rebellions. Most recently, Ménaka was put under siege and the military post sacked by former rebels who had been integrated into the Malian Army in a short term rising in May–July 2006. The current May 23, 2006 Democratic Alliance for Change rebel group dates from this siege. On 17 January 2012, Ménaka

48-788: Is part of the greater Sahara Desert . Murzuk developed around an oasis which served as a stop on the north-south trade route across the Sahara Desert. From the 5th century BC to the 5th century AD, Marzuk was home to the Garamantian Empire , a city state which operated the Trans-Saharan trade routes between the Carthaginians—and later the Roman Empire—and the Sahelian states of West and Central Africa. By 1300,

72-652: The Italians in Libya , defeated several French relief columns. They seized all the major towns of the Aïr, including Ingall , Assodé , and Aouderas , placing what is today northern Niger under rebel control for over three months. Finally on 3 March 1917, a large French force, which had been dispatched from Zinder , relieved the Agadez garrison and began to seize the rebel towns. Large-scale French reprisals were taken against

96-638: The Sahara ". The Ottoman army usually maintained a garrison there, but local control remained in the hands of the Sultan of Fezzan. In the early nineteenth century, Murzuk served as the jumping off point for multiple British expeditions in search of Lake Chad and the legendary Timbuktu . The 1822, the Denham , Oudney and Clapperton expedition traveled from Tripoli to Murzuk, where they attempted to obtain protection and supplies for their journey south. The town

120-622: The Toubou and Fula in the Sultanate of Damagaram was defeated. The revolt led by Kaocen was just one episode in a history of recurring conflict between some Tuareg confederations and the French. In 1911, a rising of Firhoun, Amenokal of Ouelimaden was crushed in Ménaka , only to reappear in northeast Mali after his escape from French custody in 1916. Many Tuareg groups had continually fought

144-493: The French (and the Italians after their 1911 invasion of Libya) since their arrival in the last decade of the 19th century. Others were driven to revolt by the severe drought of the years 1911–14, by French taxation and seizure of camels to aid other conquests, and by French abolition of the slave trade, leading many previously subservient settled communities of the area to themselves revolt against traditional rule and taxation by

168-791: The Sanusiya leadership in the Fezzan oasis town of Kufra (in modern Libya ) declared a Jihad against the French colonialists in October 1914, Kaocen rallied his forces. Tagama, the Sultan of Agadez had convinced the French military that the Tuareg confederations remained loyal, and with his help, Kaocen's forces placed the garrison under siege on 17 December 1916. Tuareg raiders, numbering over 1,000, led by Kaocen and his brother Mokhtar Kodogo , and armed with repeating rifles and one cannon seized from

192-583: The area was ruled by the Kanem Empire . According to Helmuth Kanter, a Moroccan tribe overran the area in 1310 and established Murzuk as the capital of their sultanate. The fortress, now in ruins, was built around this time. By 1400 the city was ruled by the Bornu Empire , and the legacy of Kanem-Bornu sovereignty is still evident, as some streets have names in the Kanembu and Kanuri languages. In

216-525: The coldest month of the year. Winter days are very warm, sunny and dry. Annual precipitation averages only 7 mm (0.32 in) making the location one of the driest places on Earth. The sky is always clear and bright throughout the year. In 2013, the first Toubou national festival in Libya was held in Murzuk. The city also has an annual cultural festival, which was postponed in 2014 due to security concerns. In 2013, two new cultural centers were opened in

240-759: The exchange of four al-Qaeda members for Pierre Camatte, after which, it said the French and Malian governments "will be fully responsible for the French hostage's life". Camatte was freed 6 weeks later following a prisoner swap deal in which the four Islamists were released. Malian and international Human Rights organisations pointed to Ménaka in 2008, as one of several towns in the Gao Region in which informal slavery relations persist between noble caste Tuareg pastoralists and thousands of sedentary low caste Bellah Tuareg. Kaocen Revolt [REDACTED]   France Tuareg guerrillas Supported by: The Kaocen revolt ( Kabyle : Tagrawla n Kawsen )

264-506: The fever. I speak of the Turks. It attacks them principally in the beginning of the hot, and cold, weather, or in May and November. ... Mourzuk is emphatically called, like many places of Africa, Blad Elhemah , country of fever." The town declined in importance as modern transportation replaced traditional trade routes in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The Ottomans ceded Fezzan, along with

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288-639: The later half of the 15th century, the area became a tributary of the Hafsid dynasty in Tunis . Early in the 16th century, Muhammad al-Fasi established the Awlad Muhammad dynasty of Murzuq, which would hold power in the city until 1812. Al-Fasi is traditionally held to be a Moroccan sharif , but according to John Ralph Willis, oral tradition indicates that he was a pilgrim from Saguia el-Hamra in present-day Western Sahara . According to this tradition, he

312-579: The mid-2000s (see Second Tuareg Rebellion ). 18°16′37″N 7°59′58″E  /  18.2769°N 7.9994°E  / 18.2769; 7.9994 Murzuk Murzuk , Murzuq , Murzug or Merzug ( Arabic : مرزق ) 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

336-428: The nomadic Tuareg. Memory of the revolt and the killings in its wake remain fresh in the minds of modern Tuareg, to whom it is seen as both part of a large anti-colonial struggle, and amongst some as part of the post-independence struggle for autonomy from the existing governments of Niger and its neighbors. The Kaocen revolt can also be placed in a longer history of Tuareg conflict with ethnic Songhay and Hausa in

360-539: The old Ottoman fort eventually surrendered to the attackers, and the planes and facilities at the nearby airbase were destroyed. The British and Free French then withdrew, setting the garrison free, as they didn't have the transport or rations to carry the prisoners back to allied lines. In 1960 Murzuk had a population of 7,000 residents. During the Libyan Civil War , Toubou tribal fighters reportedly captured Murzuk on 17 August 2011. On 22 February 2019 it

384-700: The rest of their Libyan territories, to the Italians in 1912, following the Italo-Turkish War . Murzuk became part of colonial Italian Libya , although the town was not actually occupied by the Italians until 1914. On 11 January 1941, during the Second World War , Murzuk and its small Italian airbase were the target of a raid by about 70 men of the British Long Range Desert Group and a handful of Free French soldiers from Chad . A small Italian garrison holed up in

408-414: The slave trade, and Murzuk soon became an important part of a slaving network which extended into present-day Chad and Central African Republic . By the late 16th century, it had gained more importance than Ghat and Ghadames . Under Ottoman rule (1578–1912), Murzuk was at times the capital of Fezzan , and enjoyed a long period of prosperity. The town had a major fort, and was termed the " Paris of

432-596: The south central Sahara which goes back to at least the seizure of Agadez by the Songhay Empire in 1500 CE, or even the first migrations of Berber Tuaregs south into the Aïr in the 11th to 13th centuries CE. Conflicts have persisted since independence, with major Tuareg risings in Mali's Adrar des Ifoghas during 1963–64, the 1990s insurgencies in both Mali and Niger, and a renewed series of insurgencies beginning in

456-476: The towns, especially against local marabouts even though many were not Tuareg and had not supported the rebellion. Summary public executions by the French in Agadez and Ingall alone totaled 130. Tuareg rebels also carried out a number of atrocities. While Kaocen fled north, he was hanged by local forces in Mourzouk in 1919, and Mokhtar Kodogo was killed by the French in 1920, when a revolt that he led amongst

480-687: Was a Tuareg rebellion against French colonial rule of the area around the Aïr Mountains of northern Niger during 1916–17. Ag Mohammed Wau Teguidda Kaocen (1880–1919) was the Tuareg leader of the rising against the French. An adherent to the militantly anti-French Sanusiya Sufi religious order, Kaocen was the Amenokal (chief) of the Ikazkazan Tuareg confederation. Kaocen had engaged in numerous, mostly indecisive, attacks on French colonial forces from at least 1909. When

504-865: Was captured by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a Tuareg rebel group. On 19 November they lost their control to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb . On 25 November 2009, a French citizen named Pierre Camatte was taken hostage from a hotel in Ménaka city. A January 2010 statement issued by the AQIM , the north African branch of al-Qaeda, set an ultimatum of 20 days for

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528-467: Was considered unhealthy by many British explorers and led to illness for many, killing some and forcing others back to Tripoli. According to James Richardson : "Feb 26th (1846). I must now consider myself recovered from indisposition. At first, people talked so much about Mourzuk fever that I thought I must have it as a matter of course ... Three-fourths of the Europeans who come here invariably have

552-797: Was reported by the Benghazi General Command that Murzuk had been captured by forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar . On 4 August 2020, an airstrike by the Libyan National Army against a wedding in Murzuk killed 43 people and injured 60. Murzuk has a hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh ) typical of the Fezzan , a Libyan region lying on the heart of the Sahara Desert . Averages high temperatures exceed 40 °C (104 °F) during summer for 3 months (June, July, August) and averages high temperatures remain above 19 °C (66.2 °F) during

576-452: Was the leader of a caravan who, on arriving at the fortress of Murzuk, was asked to take control of the city by local Fezzani rulers. The reason suggested for this is an intensification of Tuareg or Berber raids, or that he was attracted by slave trade. According to tradition, he built a castle in Murzuk, which has been identified possibly as the ruined "Qal'at Awlad Muhammad". The establishment of his dynasty reinvigorated pilgrim traffic and

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