08-22-2004, 06:57 AM
Salam alaikum lifutushi
Did you ever hear about Omar Mukhtar? He was a Muslim in Libya, His profession was a teacher. One day when he was 53, the Italian Monarchy regime invaded Libya in 1911. Mukhtar led the Muslims against the Italians, his war tactics was guerilla warfare. The Italians ruled no more than two Libyan cities, they couldnt fight the arabs. Then a turning point happened, Mousalini came to power, and overthrew the king of Italy, the Fascist regime were bound on wiping out the Libyan resistance once and for all, so Mousolini placed the 6th governor of Libya, because the other 5 were fired due to their failures, by then the 6th governor who was General Rudolpho Graziani and Mukhtar was 70 years old. Graziani used Nazi tactics on the libyan population, any person outside Benghazi and Tripoli were rounded up and sent into labour camps, the entire rural population lived in detention camps. Graziani then sent the mobilized infantry division to destroy mukhtar, they saw Mukhtar and chased him in the desert, then all of a sudden an ambush took place, the entire Italian division was wiped out, but Mukhtar did not kill the italian prisoners, he let them free but said that Italians are not our teacher that we should execute them. Then Graziani was angry that one of his generals lay as a corpse with the rest of the division, made peace with mukhtar saying that the italians will comply with your demands, but will take time. Mukhtar then realized that the Italians were mustering soldiers as well as tanks (tanks brought from Italy to Libya where the first to be used in the desert) and to strike into the Bedouin city of kufra. When the Italians went to Kufra the tanks massacred the Defenders cavalry as they charged to tanks. Graziani happy of this victory, decided to fight in the mountains, achieved victory there, then he moved on with his tanks forward to battle and defeat mukhtar once and for all, then it was that the tanks were ambushed by fused tnt, the whole tank division was destroyed, Graziani fled all the way back to Rome to discuss with mussolini about the status in Libya, Graziani then decided to build a fence similar to the Wall of Hadrian in Britain, but to keep the Libyans in. It was in 1931 when Mukhtar was captured at the age of 73. He was tried but only be proven that he only attacked military targets. So the military tried him with treason against the Italian Regime, even though he never submitted to them or recognized them, so he was hanged. Graziani was later improsined after WW2 and died in prison. I think that Mukhtar was a heroe, and that he fought the Italians for 20 years, 1911-1931, aging 53-73. It was in his seventies where he achieved his greatest victories against tanks with his cavalry. He was a true heroe who never executed prisoners as well as never attacked civilians, there is a movie about him its Lion of the Desert, nice film, good effects. Finaly we should learn from him how he fought for his people with horses despite against tanks.
Ma3salama