Sirte
Sirte (ˈsɜrt; سِرْت, ), also spelled Sirt, Surt, Sert or Syrte, is a city in Libya. It is located south of the Gulf of Sirte, between Tripoli and Benghazi. It is famously known for its battles, ethnic groups, and loyalty to Muammar Gaddafi. Also due to developments in the First Libyan Civil War, it was briefly the capital of Libya as Tripoli's successor after the Fall of Tripoli from 1 September to 20 October 2011. The settlement was established in the early 20th century by the Italians, at the site of a 19th-century fortress built by the Ottomans. It grew into a city after World War II. As the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi, Sirte was favoured by the Gaddafi government. The city was the final major stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists in the civil war and Gaddafi was killed there by rebel forces on 20 October 2011 after sustaining major injury caused by French Air Force Bombs discharged as part of NATO. During the battle, Sirte was left almost completely in ruins, with many buildings destroyed or damaged. Six months after the civil war, almost 60,000 inhabitants, more than 70 percent of the pre-war population, had returned. Sirte is built near the site of the ancient Phoenician city of Macomedes-Euphranta, which was an important link on the road along the Mediterranean Sea littoral. It is the last confirmed place where the Punic language was spoken, in the 5th century CE. The region had no recognized administrative centre and was infested for centuries by bandits. In Classical times, the coast was "proverbially dangerous to shipping", called "inhospita Syrtis" in Virgil's Aeneid. John Milton's Paradise Lost Book 2 lines 939-940 speaks of "a boggy Syrtis, neither sea/Nor good dry land". The medieval city of Surt was located some 55 km east of the present-day city, at a site now known as al-Mudayna or Madina Sultan. After the Umayyad conquest of North Africa, Berbers from the Butr confederation settled in Surt, and around the middle of the 8th century they converted to Ibadi Islam along with the surrounding region.