Omar al-Mukhtar

National liberation and anti-colonial movements 1858–1931 ✕ Hanged

Leader of the Cyrenaican resistance who fought Italian colonial rule in Libya for nearly twenty years and was hanged

Born near Tobruk in Ottoman Cyrenaica, he studied at the Senussi university at Jaghbub and became a Quran teacher and imam. Sent by the Senussi order to fight the French in Chad, he organised the Cyrenaican resistance when Italy invaded Libya in 1911 and led it through the two Italo-Senussi wars, harrying the Italians with small guerrilla bands that used the desert. He renounced his 1929 compromise with Badoglio at the end of that year; Graziani then moved the 100,000 people of the Jebel Akhdar into coastal concentration camps and fenced the Egyptian border. Wounded and captured near Slonta on 11 September 1931, he was hanged before his followers in the Soluch camp on 16 September. He is honoured as the national hero of Libya.

Also known as: Umar al-Mukhtar