most impoverished of the Ottoman provinces. It had neither a paved road nor telegraph service, and the harbor was too silted to permit the access of shipping. Greek and Italian sponge fishermen worked its coastal waters. In 1858, and again in 1874, Benghazi was devastated by bubonic plague. Italian invasion In 1911, Benghazi was invaded by the Italians, and by 1912 they had established the colony of Cyrenaica. The local population of Cyrenaica under the leadership of Omar Mukhtar resisted the Italian occupation. Cyrenaica suffered ruthless oppression, particularly under the fascist dictator Mussolini; about 125,000 Libyans were forced into concentration camps, about two-thirds of whom perished. The Italians modernised and expanded the port, and developed the city, constructing a district of white Italianate villas and other buildings by the shore. Benghazi grew as an administrative and commercial centre, and by the start of World War II was home to about 22,000 Italians. Modern Benghazi Heavily bombed in World War II, Benghazi was later rebuilt with the country's newly found oil wealth as a gleaming showpiece of modern Libya. On 15 April 1986 US Airforce and Navy planes bombed Benghazi and Tripoli. President Ronald Reagan justified the attacks by claiming Libya was responsible for terrorism directed at the USA, including the bombing of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin ten days before. In February 2011 Benghazi was the scene of protests again the Gaddafi-led government, which caused numerous killings by paramilitary internal security forces and commando teams, and the burning down of the houses of those suspected of anti-Gaddafi regime sympathies. Beginning in late February 2011, Benghazi was no longer under control of the government in Tripoli, but was under the National Transitional Council of Libya. Following the overthrow of the Gaddafi government, the city would be plagued by instability due to weakened interim governments, a split between the Tripoli-based government and the Libyan National Army, infighting between militias, and reemerging Islamist militancy. In 2012, Benghazi became the center of controversy in the United States when the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi was attacked by a heavily armed group of Islamist 125–150 gunmen. The outbreak of the second Libyan Civil War in 2014 also saw heavy fighting in and around Benghazi between the Libyan National Army-aligned House of Representatives government, and the Islamist Shura Council of Benghazi Revolutionaries (which have become entrenched in the central coastal quarters of Suq Al-Hout and