[6] Originally formed in April 2011 in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi, it later relocated to the Nafusa Mountains, then the closest frontline to Tripoli, before advancing into the city itself in August.

In February 2011 Mahdi al-Harati travelled from Ireland to Benghazi and began to create a well-organised group that could fight in the western provinces of Libya.

The brigade started with a core group of 15 men, but grew within days to 150, during the training period in Zintan and Nalut numbers swelled to 470, and was recorded at 570 at Zawiya.

The brigade saw action throughout the 2011 Nafusa Mountains Campaign including in the towns of Nalut, Bir Ghanem and Tiji, in combat against loyalist forces.

[7] Due to the threat of perceived reprisals against the families of Tripoli brigade soldiers, their faces must be covered, at least when being filmed by journalists.

[14] It did receive communications equipment and three-week's urban warfare training from Qatari special forces in the Nafusa mountains.

In a media interview in Tripoli, Commander Harati said his battalion is not an elite armed force and that it is "important to understand that we are all civilians.

[9] The enrolling register counts many professionals among its members including doctors, businessmen, mechanics, engineers, and web designers.

The Tripoli Brigade took a key military base and the 27th bridge, a gateway to the capital, just a day after defeating loyalist troops in Zawiya.

The only impediment to a rush into the capital was on another front line, outside the town of Azizia, the Tripoli Brigade and allies from the western mountain forces were ordered to hold back while the alliance carried out heavy bombing raids on loyalist positions there.

The Tripoli Brigade, alongside rebel forces from Misrata, were also the first to punch through the main gates of Gaddafi's former residence, Bab al Azizia.

[18] The UK Daily Telegraph reported of the brigade "The rebels pushing into Tripoli are young professionals fighting to establish a very different country from the dictatorship founded well before they were born".

[21] The Tripoli brigade were front-line troops during the taking of Colonel Gaddafi's famous residential compound, Bab al Azizia.

[23][24] In the weeks after the fall of the Gaddafi Government in Tripoli the brigade took a major role in the securing the city and clearing it of the few remaining pockets of resistance.

He was described by the Dutch daily newspaper Volkskrant as being a face of the battle of Tripoli and one of the most important commanders in the National Liberation Army.