Omar Mukhtar (Arabic: عمر المختار Omar Al-Mukhtār) (20 August 1862 – 16 September 1931), of the Mnifa, was born in the small village of Zanzour, near Tobruk in eastern Barqa (Cyrenaica) in Libya. Beginning in 1912, he organized and, for nearly twenty years, led native resistance to Italian colonization of Libya. Italian armed forces captured and hanged him in 1931.