The town became of strategic importance during the Allied invasion of North Africa in World War II. Following the initial landings of Operation Torch, the Allied run for Tunis was halted by German paratroops (operating in the ground role) in the hills east of the town in November 1942. British troops of the 8th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, part of 36th Brigade of British 78th Division, were ambushed as they advanced on the road through the hills on November 29, 1942 and their wrecked Universal Carriers in No man's land became a grim symbol of the ensuing stalemate to Allied troops over the following several months of the Tunisia Campaign. These dominant hills, known to the Allies, as "Green Hill", "Baldy" and "Sugarloaf" were a barrier to further Allied advances in the north through to February 1943. Alan Moorehead a war correspondednt wrote in "African Trilogy" (1944),