Italian Cyrenaica Italian Cyrenaica Italian Cyrenaica was an Italian colony, located in present-day eastern Libya, that existed from 1912 to 1934. It was part of the Italian North African territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire in 1911. The administrative capital was Benghazi. Italian Cyrenaica was formed in 1927, after it and Italian Tripolitania became independent colonial entities within Italian North Africa. In 1934, Italian Cyrenaica became part of Italian Libya. In the 1920s, Cyrenaica was the scene of fighting between Italian colonial forces and Libyan rebels who were fighting for independence from colonial rule. In 1931, the rebel independence leader Omar Mukhtar
Cyrenaica dictatorship, including a military rebellion at Tobruk in 1980. In 2007, the Green Mountain Conservation and Development Authority, headed by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, announced a regional plan for Cyrenaica, developed by the firm Foster and Partners. The plan, known as The Cyrene Declaration, aimed to revive Cyrenaica's agriculture, create a national park and develop the region as a cultural- and eco-tourism destination. The announced pilot projects included plans for three hotels, including the Cyrene Grand Hotel near the ruins of Cyrene. For much of the Libyan civil war, Cyrenaica was largely under the control of the National Transitional Council while