In 2011, on this day a NATO air attack led by French warplanes struck a fifteen vehicle convoy speeding away from the Libyan city of Sirte.

Libyan Endgame
Based on an original idea by Jackie SpeelAlthough the strike had killed almost everybody in the convoy, the few remaining survivors decided to secretly bury the dead in a storm culvert. Fighters of the National Transitional Council (NTC) were drawn to the scene by the carnage and they executed the escaping survivors before they could be questioned. Because the men had not resisted arrest, the NTC Fighters had broken the Geneva Convention and unsurprisingly the execution of prisoners of war was concealed by the leadership.

Although Sirte was the home city of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi neither the NATO Commanders or the NTC had intelligence that the Libyan leader was escaping in the convoy. In the event, his missing whereabouts caused longs months of confusion and uncertainty that were characterised by NTC Fighters remaining active in Libyan cities long after the Civil War had in fact been won. And to add to the confusion, one of MG's sons remained active on the Niger border, creating a phantom threat from the toppled regimé.