After the occupation of Brak, the Italian forces moved to the town of Aqar on the morning of 12/24/1913 in preparation for heading towards Mahruqa and the western part of the Wadi al-Shati area. The Mujahideen forces learned
of Miani's intention to advance west to Mahruqa, so they carefully chose Wadi al-Qara and stationed themselves there, as there was no other place more suitable for fighting the battle than this place. It is a fortified strategic location through which nature can be exploited as a strong barrier and support in confronting the enemy and obstructing its advance.
Some men were placed on the top of the Qara hill and the surrounding heights of the northern road to monitor, reconnoiter, and follow the movements of the enemy. The number of Mujahideen forces was about a thousand fighters from various urban and desert tribes residing between Aqar in the west and the town of Idri.
Description of the land and its appearance:
Wadi Al-Qara is a valley that slopes from north to south, overlooking its western edge is Qara Mahruqa, which is a mountainous elevation overlooking two roads leading to the town of Mahruqa. The first is known as the northern road, and it passes through a narrow passage, the northern edge of which is the heights of Mount Fezzan, and its southern edge is Qara Mahruqa itself. As for the southern road, it passes through flat areas interspersed with some small valleys, and the sands border it on its southern edge.
The Mujahideen’s choice of this location was a sign of shrewdness and cunning, as their old weapons could not provide them with sufficient and effective fire cover, and their position had to be in a location that would provide them with effective fortifications against enemy fire, and also provide them with the possibility of direct fire at the enemy from their fortified positions.
The course of the battle:
Miani's plan was very similar to his plan in the previous battle of Ashkada. He gathered information about the location of the Mujahideen, and the location and location of the Mujahideen in the highlands seemed very similar to him, so he decided to follow the same method by pretending that the accompanying convoy was moving southward; in order to force the Mujahideen to go out into the open, and thus they would be at the mercy of his forces and their deadly weapons.
Miani prepared the combat formation of his forces to enter into battle with the Mujahideen in the Wadi Al-Qara region, so on the right were the recruited Libyan soldiers, on the left were the Eritrean soldiers, and in the rear were the supplies and guards. The Italian forces arrived at the site of Al-Qarah, and Miani began to implement his plan, and pushed a unit of his forces towards the valleys from the north to cut it off heading south, and the orders were for the unit to turn west to confront the Mujahideen. This force penetrated the valley, and suddenly the Mujahideen forces surprised them, and began to shoot at them in an ambush that was carefully prepared and unexpected for the enemy, and the success of this was due to the information received from the Mujahideen reconnaissance group.
The Italian command tried to relieve the severe pressure that the first group was exposed to, so it pushed some of its forces towards the southern side of the valley, and these forces had a great impact on the course of the battle, but the Mujahideen soon became aware of this, and began to clash with the second group, and was exposed to fire from the Mujahideen stationed in their fortifications in the valley and on the heights.
The Mujahideen forces repelled two successive attacks to penetrate the Mujahideen lines carried out by the Italian forces, and devoted the main effort to them, and lost many men in each attempt. As a result, Miani used artillery to shell the Mujahideen positions in the highlands in an attempt to relieve the severe pressure on his forces, but the Mujahideen forces were not affected, and remained steadfast in their positions. Miani had issued orders for the convoy to head south, but he returned and gave orders to withdraw, and here the disaster occurred.
When the Mujahideen saw the convoy moving away, they thought that they had achieved complete victory, and that their enemy was trying to escape and move far away with his supplies and equipment, so they left their positions and headed towards the convoy across the flat land. Here, the Italian forces began to launch a counterattack along the front, using all their weapons to stop their advance and eliminate them.
The machine guns began to shoot directly at them, and here the Mujahideen infantry began to fall, and the Mujahideen cavalry followed them, which led to the Mujahideen forces retreating and withdrawing in an irregular manner. Organized, and this reminds us of what happened in the Battle of Ashkada for the same reasons.
The battle lasted for more than five continuous hours, characterized by violence, and a large number of Italian officers and soldiers were killed, and a large number of Mujahideen and their leaders were martyred, among them was the martyred hero Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Bousifi, the commander of the battle, the owner of purposeful national positions, who refused to surrender and announced the continuation of the struggle and armed struggle. It is worth noting that this Mujahid had moved with some of his men to the south after participating in the Battle of Al-Asabaa (Jendouba), refusing to surrender and enter into political negotiations, and preferred to confront the Miani campaign, and was able to incite resistance against it that continued even after his martyrdom in Mahrouqa.
It is worth noting that among the participants in the Battle of Qara Mahrouqa was the Jordanian Mujahid, Officer Najib Al-Batayneh Al-Hawrani, who had participated in many battles of the Libyan Jihad in the eastern region alongside his Mujahideen brothers, and among the battles in which he participated in eastern Libya were the battles of (Al-Shalzmiya, Al-Kardaisi, and Zawiyat Masous).
The resistance, which was ignited by the martyred Mujahid Sheikh Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Bousifi, continued, and attacks continued on the campaign of Miani, who tried to settle in Fezzan, but the length of his lines of communication with his bases in Sirte and Tripoli, the lack of his supplies, and the dispersion of his forces that were stranded after they penetrated the Fezzan region, dispersed their forces and made them a target for the Mujahideen forces, who were able to overcome and defeat him and the fall of his garrisons that he had deployed in the region one after the other.
In early 1915, all the regions of Fezzan had actually left the authority of the Italian forces. Thus, the Italian forces did not remain in their first campaign on Fezzan for more than one year, during which the sands of the Fezzan desert burned like flames and hell in the faces of the Italian forces. The Fezzan and Qibla regions remained an obsession for the Italian colonialists, which prompted General Graziani to call them the explosion room for the general situation in Tripoli
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