Just a few significant people from the Gaddafi tribe, of whom some were born in Sirte, were appointed to government roles during the time of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya until the NATO-led invasion of Libya in 2011.

[4] Sirte is built near the site of the ancient Phoenician city of Macomedes-Euphranta,[5] which was an important link on the road along the Mediterranean Sea littoral.

[8] After the Umayyad conquest of North Africa, Berbers from the Butr confederation settled in Surt, and around the middle of the 8th century they converted to Ibadi Islam along with the surrounding region.

[8] The most detailed early description of the city was written by Ibn Hawqal, who passed through Surt in 947 on his way to al-Mahdiyyah (which was then the capital of the Fatimid Caliphate).

[8] Ibn Hawqal described Surt as being "a bow-shot away from the sea, built on hard, sandy ground with strong walls of mud and brick".

[8] In the late Fatimid period, Surt began to decline - it seems to have lost its position at the intersection of east-west and north-south trade routes.

The fortress was built under sultan Abdülmecid I as part of the restoration of Ottoman control over Tripolitania after the fall of the Karamanli dynasty.

[10] During the North African Campaign of the Second World War there were no noteworthy events in this location, which was characterised at the time as "a shabby little Arab village of mud huts, clustered on the banks of a foul-smelling stream.

"[11] The village grew into a prominent town after the Second World War for two reasons – the discovery and exploitation of oil nearby and the birth of Muammar Gaddafi in 1942 in a tent at Qasr Abu Hadi, some 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Sirte.

[12] After seizing power in 1969, Gaddafi transformed Sirte into a showcase of his self-proclaimed revolution, carrying out an extensive program of public works to expand the former village into a small city.

Government forces launched a counter-offensive that recaptured Ra's Lanuf[18][19] and continued to advance as far as the outskirts of the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi.

Under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, several Western and Arab countries then intervened with air and missile strikes, which turned the tide again in favour of the rebels.

[21] By 30 March, Gaddafi loyalists had forced the rebels out of Bin Jawad and Ra's Lanuf and once again removed the immediate threat of an attack on Sirte.

As Tripoli came under attack, other rebel forces based in Benghazi broke the military stalemate in the eastern desert, taking Brega and Ra's Lanuf.

[26] Anti-Gaddafi forces surrounded the city during September 2011 and began a long, difficult battle there, hoping to bring the war to an end.

Muammar Gaddafi attempted to flee the city, but he was injured and hid in a large drainage pipe before being captured by NTC fighters.

[33] Landmarks like the Ouagadougou Conference Center, which became an impromptu fortress for the city's defenders during the battle, were ruined by artillery fire and blasts.

[4] In February 2012, some local residents said they felt abandoned by the National Transitional Council (NTC), but the new government had promised to rebuild the city and Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur insisted this would happen.

[36] During the widespread chaos and civil war that followed the revolution and led to the erosion of territorial control under the General National Congress (GNC) (which had succeeded the NTC) and the new GNC (NGNC), local loyalists to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which had previously seized the port city of Derna, launched an attack in March 2015 to capture Sirte, which was then occupied by the Libya Shield Force, an NGNC-linked militia.

[40][41][42] A contributing factor to the recapture of the city were the over 400 airstrikes organized by the United States Africa Command against ISIL positions during the months-long battle.