ITALY: Muktar

A detachment of the Italian camel corps in Cyrenaica lurched swiftly over stony roads near the Libyan coast last week in pursuit of a band of Arab rebels. Late at night they made contact near the little village of Slonta. There was a running fight. Rifles flashed yellow in the dark. Twelve tribesmen were killed. A short charge captured most of the rest, including their leader, a hardbitten, wiry old veteran of 75, wearing the silkenturban cords of a sheik.

Suddenly the little skirmish at Slonta became international news. Rome jubilated. Back at headquarters it was discovered that the oldster was none other than the great Senussi chieftain Omar el Muktar, bravest and most implacable of Italy’s native foemen.

The Senussites are a Moslem sect founded in 1835 with the establishment of a monastery at Abu Kobeis near Mecca by the revered Sidi Mohammed ben Ali ben Es Senussi el Khettabi el Hassani el Idrissi el Mehajiri. Ever since Italy captured Tripoli (now known as Italian Libya, divided into the districts of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica) from the Turks in 1911 the Senussites have stubbornly resisted Italian penetration of the interior. One by one other Senussi chieftains have been forced to surrender, but Omar el Muktar always held out.

In January Kufra, the Senussi stronghold, was captured. Thousands of tribesmen were forced to flee into Egypt. Italy thrilled to learn that the squadrons of planes that harried the fleeing Senussites mightily from the air were commanded by little King Vittorio Emanuele’s own cousin, Amedeo Duke of Apulia (TIME, Feb. 9).

With Kufra in Italian hands, valiant old Muktar and his followers were cut oft from their source of supplies, forced to skulk in the ravines near the coast. Their eventual capture was only a matter ot weeks. Muktar’s capture was of particular interest to the French. Their chief Moroccan rebel, the great Abd-el-Krim who surrendered in 1926, was last seen growing enormously fat in polygamous exile on the French island of Reunion in the Indian Ocean. The capture of Omar el Muktar means that the actual pacification of Libya is imminent. Italy has always protested that the southern boundary of Libya adjoining French Africa has never been definitely fixed. French authorities have insisted with some justice that since Italy has not been able to control the territory within 100 miles of the border, the appointment of a boundary commission would be a waste of time, but with the capture of Muktar and the dispersal of the Senussites, the boundary question looms large.