Cyrenaican desert campaign
2011 military campaign during the Libyan Civil War
The Cyrenaican desert campaign was a military campaign that initiated in April 2011 by the Libyan military in the form of hit-and-run attacks against rebel-held towns and oil facilities in the eastern Libyan Desert, during the Libyan Civil War. The campaign failed in denying anti-Gaddafi forces control of southern Cyrenaica.
Campaign
On 3 April, the security chief for the Kufra region, Saleh Muhammad al-Zaruq, declared his and his troops' support for the rebels and broke off from the Gaddafi government, taking control of the area.
On 4 April, loyalist forces blew up a crucial water pipeline near Jalu in an attempt to cut water supplies for rebel-held east Libya. However, during the process, they also inadvertently destroyed part of the pipeline system supplying west Libya as well as the east.
On 6 April, the Gaddafi government stated that a NATO air-strike on the Sarir oil field left three oil facility security guards dead. However, the rebels, who were already in control of the oil field per some reports, claimed that it was not a NATO but a loyalist ground attack.
On 21 April, a convoy of nine loyalist vehicles attacked the rebel-held al-Boster oil facility in the Libyan desert, about 300 kilometres (190 mi) south west of Tobruk. Eight of the nine rebels that were stationed at the pumping station were killed in the attack while the ninth managed to escape while seriously wounded.
On 28 April, loyalist forces entered the town of Kufra, also called Al Jawf, which is the capital of the Kufra District and re-took control of the town from the rebels.
The public source identifies “Cyrenaican desert campaign” as 2011 military campaign during the Libyan Civil War. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cyrenaican, desert and campaign.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cyrenaican desert campaign” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.