Nofaliya or Nawfaliya ( ''Nawfalīyah'') is a town in the desert in the Sirte District of

Libya Libya, officially the State of Libya, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya border, the east, Sudan to Libya–Sudan border, the southeast, Chad to Chad–L ...

. It is west of Libya's major oil ports. It is located in the former Bin Jawad District, around 20 km west of

Bin Jawad Bin Jawad ( '), also known as ''Bin Jawwād'', ''Bin Quwad'' is a town with estimated 8,488 inhabitants in the Sirte District in Libya. It is approximately halfway between Benghazi and Misrata. The nearest settlements are Nofaliya, which is abou ...

and 15 km south east of ‘Uwayja.

History

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Nofaliya was the site of a brief skirmish in late 1942 when some of

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (; 15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), popularly known as The Desert Fox (, ), was a German '' Generalfeldmarschall'' (field marshal) during World War II. He served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of ...

's retreating forces ran out of fuel., reprinted in 2005 by Kessinger Publishing, At the time it was home to a small fort with a few Italian buildings in addition to a mosque, some shops and a school. During the

Second Libyan Civil War The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of U ...

, Nofaliya was fought over by the New General National Congress forces (NGNC), the

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant The Islamic State (IS), also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Daesh, is a transnational Salafi jihadist organization and unrecognized quasi-state. IS occupied signi ...

(ISIL); the

Libyan National Army The Libyan National Army (LNA; , ''al-jaysh al-waṭaniyy al-Lībii''), also known as the Libyan Arab Army (LAA; , ''al-Jaysh al-'Arabiyy al-Lībii'') or the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF; ), is a component of Libyan Armed Forces, Libya's mil ...

(LNA) and various militias. In February 2015, the town was taken over by the ISIL. A convoy of forty heavily armed vehicles arrived from

Sirte Sirte (; , ), also spelled Sirt, Surt, Sert or Syrte, is a city in Libya. It is located south of the Gulf of Sirte, almost right in the middle between Tripoli and Benghazi. It is famously known for its battles, ethnic groups and loyal ...

and ordered Nofaliya's residents to "repent" and pledge allegiance to

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri (28 July 1971 – 27 October 2019), commonly known by his ''nom de guerre'' Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was an Iraqi militant leader who was the founder and first leader of the Islamic State (IS), who proclaimed hims ...

. The fighters appointed Ali Al-Qarqaa as "emir" of the town. Nofaliya was briefly retaken by New General National Congress forces on 19 March 2015, but they withdrew the next day. The LNA took the town, but ISIL regained the town from the LNA the following week. It was not until the Bunyan Marsous offensive in Spring of 2016 that pro-government forces retook the city on 31 May 2016. However, in December 2016 militia forces, believed to be units of the Benghazi Defence Brigades, attempted to take over Nofaliya, driving off the NGNC forces, but were in turn driven out the same day by the

(LNA).

References

Populated places in Sirte District Tripolitania {{Libya-geo-stub