Martyrs' Day in Libya

Anniversary of the martyrdom of Omar al-Mukhtar in 1931.

Omar al-Mukhtar, also known as Omar Mukhtar (August 20, 1858 - September 16, 1931), from Mnifa, was born in the small village of Zawiyat Janzour, near Tobruk in eastern Barca in Libya. Called by the nicknames "The Sheikh of the Martyrs" (shaykh al-shuhadāʾ) and "The Lion of the Desert" (asad as-ṣaḥrāʾ), he organized and was a leader for nearly twenty years (beginning in 1912) of the anti-colonial resistance of the natives against Italian control of Libya. The Italians captured and hanged him in 1931. In Libya he is considered a national hero and instilled in a young Gaddafi a strong sense of anti-colonialism.