Sirte in the context of "African Union"

This is a list of the 100 largest populated places in Libya. Some places in the list could be considered suburbs or neighborhoods of some large cities in the list, so this list is not definitive.

Source:Amraja M. el Khajkhaj, "Noumou al Mudon as Sagheera fi Libia", Dar as Saqia, Benghazi-2008, pp. 118-123.

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi (c. 1942 – 20 October 2011) was a Libyan military officer, revolutionary, politician, and political theorist who ruled Libya from 1969 until his overthrow by Libyan rebel forces in 2011 during the first Libyan civil war. He came to power through a military coup, first becoming Revolutionary Chairman of the Libyan Arab Republic from 1969 to 1977, Secretary General of the General People's Congress from 1977 to 1979, and then the Brotherly Leader of the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from 1979 to 2011. Initially ideologically committed to Arab nationalism and Arab socialism, Gaddafi later ruled according to his own Third International Theory.

Born near Sirte, Italian Libya, to a poor Bedouin Arab family, Gaddafi became an Arab nationalist while at school in Sabha, later enrolling in the Royal Military Academy, Benghazi. He founded a revolutionary group known as the Free Officers movement which deposed the Western-backed Senussi monarchy of Idris in a 1969 coup. Gaddafi converted Libya into a republic governed by his Revolutionary Command Council. Ruling by decree, he deported Libya's Italian population and ejected its Western military bases. He strengthened ties to Arab nationalist governments and unsuccessfully advocated pan-Arab political union. An Islamic modernist, he introduced sharia as the basis for the legal system and promoted Islamic socialism. He nationalized the oil industry and used the increasing state revenues to bolster the military, fund foreign revolutionaries, and implement social programs emphasizing housebuilding, healthcare and education projects. In 1973, he initiated a "Popular Revolution" with the formation of Basic People's Congresses, presented as a system of direct democracy, but retained personal control over major decisions. He outlined his Third International Theory that year in The Green Book.

The Sirte Declaration was the resolution adopted by the Organisation of African Unity on 9 September 1999, at the fourth Extraordinary Session of the OAU Assembly of African Heads of State and Government held at Sirte, Libya. The Declaration announced decisions to:

• establish the African Union
• speed up the implementation of the provisions of the Abuja Treaty, to create an African Economic Community, African Central Bank, African Monetary Union, African Court of Justice and Pan-African Parliament, with the Parliament to be established by 2000
• prepare a Constitutive Act of the African Union that can be ratified by 31 December 2000 and become effective the following year
• give President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa a mandate to negotiate for the cancellation of the African indebtedness
• convene an African Ministerial Conference on security, stability, development and co-operation

The Declaration was followed by summits at Lomé in 2000, when the Constitutive Act of the African Union was adopted, and at Lusaka in 2001, when the plan for the implementation of the African Union was adopted. The first session of the Assembly of the African Union was held in Durban on 9 July 2002.

The Gulf of Sidra (Arabic: خليج السدرة, romanized: Khalij as-Sidra), also known as the Gulf of Sirte (Arabic: خليج سرت, romanized: Khalij Surt), is a body of water in the Mediterranean Sea on the northern coast of Libya, named after the oil port of Sidra or the city of Sirte. It was also historically known as the Great Sirte or Greater Syrtis (Latin: Syrtis Major; Ancient Greek: Σύρτις μεγάλη; contrasting with Syrtis Minor on the coast of Tunisia).

Qasr Abu Hadi (Arabic: قصر ابو هادي, romanized: Qaṣr Abū Hādī) is a village with an estimated 4,890 inhabitants in the Sirte District of Libya. It is 2 km east of the Gardabya Airport and 20 km south of Sirte.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi claimed to have been born in a goat-hair tent near the village on 7 June 1942.

The Battle of Sirte was the final and most decisive battle of the First Libyan Civil War, beginning when the National Liberation Army attacked the last remnants of the Libyan army still loyal to Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown and designated capital of Sirte, on the Gulf of Sidra. As of September 2011, Sirte and Bani Walid were the last strongholds of Gaddafi loyalists and the National Transitional Council hoped that the fall of Sirte would bring the war to an end. The battle and its aftermath marked the fall of the final stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists. Both Gaddafi and his son, Mutassim, were wounded and captured, then tortured and killed in custody less than an hour later. The month-long battle left Sirte almost completely in ruins, with many buildings damaged or totally destroyed.

Operation Sonnenblume (Unternehmen Sonnenblume, "Operation Sunflower") was the name given to the dispatch of German and Italian troops to North Africa in February 1941, during the Second World War. The Italian 10th Army (10ª Armata) had been destroyed by the British, Commonwealth, Empire and Allied Western Desert Force attacks during Operation Compass (9 December 1940 – 9 February 1941). The first units of the new Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK), commanded by Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel, departed Naples for Africa and arrived on 11 February 1941. (In the English-speaking world, the term Afrika Korps became a generic term for German forces in North Africa.) On 14 February, advanced units of the 5th Light Afrika Division (later renamed the 21st Panzer Division), Aufklärungsbataillon 3 (Reconnaissance Battalion 3) and Panzerjägerabteilung 39 (Anti-tank Detachment 39) arrived at the Libyan port of Tripoli and were sent immediately to the front line east of Sirte.

Rommel arrived in Libya on 12 February, with orders to defend Tripoli and Tripolitania, albeit using aggressive tactics. General Italo Gariboldi replaced Maresciallo d'Italia (Marshal of Italy) Rodolfo Graziani as the Governor-General of Libya on 25 March and Generale d'Armata Mario Roatta, Commander in Chief of the Royal Italian Army (Regio Esercito), ordered Graziani to place Italian motorised units in Libya under the new Italian–German command. The first German troops reached Sirte on 15 February, advanced to Nofilia on 18 February and a German raiding party ambushed a British patrol near El Agheila on 24 February. On 24 March, the Axis captured El Agheila and on 31 March attacked Mersa Brega. The understrength 3rd Armoured Brigade failed to counter-attack and began to retreat towards Benghazi the next day.