From the 5th century BCE to the 5th century CE, Fezzan was home to the
Garamantes, who operated the
Trans-Saharan trade routes successively between
Carthage and the
Roman Empire in North Africa and
Sahelian states of west and central Africa. The Roman generals Septimus Flaccus in 19 BCE and
Suetonius Paulinus in 50 CE led small-scale
military expeditions into the northern reaches of the Sahara, and the Roman explorer Julius Maternus traveled there in early 1st century CE. Paulinus reached Fezzan and went further south. With the end of the Roman Empire and the following commercial crisis, Fezzan began to lose importance. The population was greatly reduced due to the
desertification process of the
Sahara during the early
Middle Ages. During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Fezzan became a part of the
Kanem Empire, which extended as far as
Zella, Libya. Wars against the
Kanem–Bornu Empire in the early sixteenth century led to the founding of the
Awlad Muhammad dynasty, with
Murzuk becoming the capital of Fezzan. Around 1565 it was ruled by Muhammad ibn al-Muntasir. In 1574 the
Ottoman Tripolitania under Mahmut bey invaded and occupied
Fezzan and the Oasis and possibly even reached
Lake Chad. From the beginning of the second Ottoman period, the place was run by the
Kerdusian of
Zawiya, who raided
Kaouar and clashed often with the
Senusite over rule of Fezzan. Fezzan had been vassailized since 1574, but only in the 1580s did the rulers of Fezzan give their allegiance to the sultan, but the Turks refrained from trying to exercise any influence there. It was occupied fully from times to time like in 1679-1682, 1690, 1716, 1718 and 1811/1812. Beginning in 1911, Fezzan was occupied by
Italy. However, Italy's control of the region was precarious until at least 1923, with the rise of
Benito Mussolini. The Italians were resisted in their early attempts at conquest by tribal Arab adherents to the militant
Sanusiya Sufi religious order. The
Tuareg clans of the region were only pacified by European expansion shortly before the
Second World War, and some of them collaborated with the
Italian Army in the
North African Campaign.
Free French troops occupied
Murzuk, a chief town of Fezzan, on 16 January 1943, and proceeded to administer Fezzan with a staff stationed in
Sabha, forming the
Military Territory of Fezzan-Ghadames. French administration was largely exercised through Fezzan notables of the family of Sayf Al Nasr. Disquieting to the tribes in western Fezzan was the administrative attachment of
Ghat, and its surrounding area, to French-ruled
Algeria. Fezzan was a stronghold for Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi through much of the
2011 Libyan Civil War, though starting in July,
anti-Gaddafi forces began to
gain ground, taking control of the region's largest city of Sabha in mid-to-late September. The LF country code (.lf) was reserved "on behalf" of Libya Fezzan (for an "indeterminate period of time") by the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO). There are oil wells in Fezzan capable of producing 400,000 barrels per day, but oil companies fly in staff from northern Libya. The local tribes are not getting any money from the oil trade, and so have turned to smuggling migrants from other parts of Africa, which is feeding the
European migrant crisis and is a $1 billion per year industry. ==See also==