Senussi in the context of "Acroma"

The Second Italo-Senussi War, also referred to as the pacification of Libya, was a conflict that occurred during the Italian colonization of Libya between Italian military forces (composed mainly by colonial troops from Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia) and indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order. The war lasted from 1923 until 1932, when the principal Senussi leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, was captured and executed. The Libyan genocide took place during and after the conflict.

Fighting took place in all three of Libya's provinces (Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica), but was most intense and prolonged in the mountainous Jebel Akhdar region of Cyrenaica. The war led to the mass deaths of the indigenous people of Cyrenaica, totalling one quarter of the region's population of 225,000. Italian war crimes included the use of chemical weapons, execution of surrendering combatants, and the mass killing of civilians, while the Senussis were accused of torture and mutilation of captured Italians and refusal to take prisoners since the late 1910s. Italian authorities forcibly expelled 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica, from their settlements, many of which were then given to Italian settlers.

The earliest presence of Islam in Chad can be traced back to Uqba ibn Nafi, whose descendants can be found settled in the Lake Chad region to this day. By the time Arab migrants began arriving from the east in the fourteenth century in sizeable numbers, the creed was already well established. Islamization in Chad was gradual, the effect of the slow spread of Islamic civilization beyond its political frontiers. Among Chadian Muslims, 48% professed to be Sunni, 21% Shia, 23% just Muslim and 4% Other.

Islam in Chad was not influenced much by the great mystical movements of the Islamic Middle Ages, nor the fundamentalist upheavals that affected other countries. Consistent contact with West African Muslim traders and pilgrims may be the reason Chadian Muslims identify with the Tijaniyya order. Similarly, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Senusiyya brotherhood was founded in Libya, which benefited from economic and political influence in the Lake Chad Basin around 1900. An Islamic revival movement, feared by some French, led by Sanusi fanatics, Chadian adherents, limited to the Awlad Sulayman Arabs and the Toubou of eastern Tibesti, have never been numerous.

The Frontier Wire was a 271 km (168 mi) obstacle in Italian Libya, along the length of the border of British-held Egypt, running from El Ramleh, in the Gulf of Sollum (between Bardia and Sollum) south to Jaghbub parallel to the 25th meridian east, the Libya–Egypt and Libya–Sudan borders. The frontier wire and its line of covering forts was built by the Italians during the Second Italo-Senussi War (1923–1931), as a defensive system to contain the Senussi population, who crossed from Egypt during their resistance against Italian colonisers.

From the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940 until the conquest of Libya by the British in 1942, it was the scene of military engagements between Italian, British and German forces as the fighting ebbed and flowed across the frontier. While the installation was reasonably effective against the poorly equipped Senussi, it was ineffective against the well-equipped conventional army fielded by the British.

Kufra (/ˈkuːfrə/) is a basin and oasis group in the Kufra District of southeastern Cyrenaica in Libya. At the end of the 19th century, Kufra became the centre and holy place of the Senussi order. It also played a minor role in the Western Desert Campaign of World War II.

It is located in a particularly isolated area, not only because it is in the middle of the Sahara Desert but also because it is surrounded on three sides by depressions which make it dominate the passage of the east-west land traffic across the desert. For the colonial Italians, it was also important as a station on the north-south air route to Italian East Africa. These factors, along with Kufra's dominance of the southeastern Cyrenaica region of Libya, highlight the strategic importance of the oasis and why it was a point of conflict during World War II.

Prince Ahmed Al-Zubair al-Senussi, also known as Zubeir Ahmed El-Sharif (Arabic: أحمد الزبير الشريف السنوسي; born 1934) is a Libyan member of the Senussi house and a member of the National Transitional Council representing political prisoners.

ʿUmar al-Mukhtār Muḥammad bin Farḥāt al-Manifī (Arabic: عُمَر الْمُخْتَار مُحَمَّد بِن فَرْحَات الْمَنِفِي; 20 August 1858 – 16 September 1931), called The Lion of the Desert, known among the colonial Italians as Matari of the Mnifa, was a Libyan revolutionary and Imam who led the native resistance in Cyrenaica (currently Eastern Libya) under the Senussids, against the Italian colonization of Libya. A teacher-turned-general, Omar was a prominent figure of the Senussi movement and is considered the national hero of Libya and a symbol of resistance in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Beginning in 1911, he organised and led the Libyan resistance movement against the Italian colonial empire during the First and Second Italo-Senussi Wars. Externally, he also participated in armed opposition against the French in Chad and the British in Egypt. After many attempts, the Italian Armed Forces managed to capture Al-Mukhtar near Slonta when he was wounded in battle by Libyan colonial troops, and hanged him in 1931 after he refused to surrender.

The Senussi campaign took place in North Africa from November 1915 to February 1917, during the First World War. The campaign was fought by the Senussi, a religious order of Arabic nomads in Libya and Egypt, against the Kingdom of Italy and the British Empire. The Senussi were courted by the Ottoman Empire and the German Empire. Recognising French and Italian threats, the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, had twice sent his aide-de-camp Azmzade Sadik El Mueyyed to meet Sheikh Muhammed El Mehdi El Senussi to cultivate positive relations and counter the west European scramble for Africa.

In the summer of 1915, the Ottomans persuaded the Grand Senussi, Ahmed Sharif as-Senussi, to declare jihad, attack the Italians in Libya and the British in Egypt and foment insurrection to divert British forces from the Sinai Peninsula in the east. The Senussi crossed the Libyan–Egyptian border in November 1915 and fought a campaign along the Egyptian coast. British Empire forces withdrew, then defeated the Senussi in several engagements, culminating in the action of Agagia, followed by the re-capture of the coast in March 1916. In the interior, the band of oases campaign continued until February 1917, after which a peace was negotiated and the area became a backwater for the rest of the war, patrolled by British aircraft and armoured cars.