were to make junction in front of Kairouan, before launching their final attack on the city. Wasting no time, Handhala dispatched a cavalry force to slow down Abd al-Wahid's progress, and threw the bulk of his forces south, defeating Oqasha in a bloody battle at El-Qarn and taking him prisoner. But Handhala had taken a lot of losses himself, and now faced the unhappy prospect of Abd al-Wahid's gigantic army, said to be some 300,000, ostensibly the largest Berber army ever seen. Hurrying back, Handhala is said to have put the entire population of Kairouan under arms to bolster his ranks, before setting out again. In perhaps the bloodiest encounter in the Berber wars, Handhala ibn Safwan defeated the great Berber army of Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid at El-Asnam in May 742 (perhaps a little later), just three miles outside of Kairouan. Some 120,000-180,000 Berbers, including Abd al-Wahid, fell in the field of battle in that single encounter. Having saved Ifriqiya from the Berber rebellion, Handhala focused his attentions on al-Andalus (Spain), where a veritable internecine war was raging between Andalusian Arabs and the newly arrived 'Syrian' junds (the remnant of the military force Caliph Hisham had dispatched to Ifriqiya in 741). In early 743, Handhala ibn Safwan dispatched his cousin Abu al-Khattar ibn Darar al-Kalbi as his deputy to Córdoba, taking over the government of al-Andalus and settling the quarrel. In 743–44, Handhala was kept busy putting out sporadic revolts in the hinterlands of Ifriqiya, and had little or no time to concentrate on recovering the westerly provinces of Morocco and bringing the Berber back under Umayyad rule. It is possible he may have succeeded in recovering some of the coastal cities, like Tangiers, for the Caliphate, but the bulk of Morocco and western Algeria remained under the sway of autonomous Berber tribal rulers. In 744, the Masmuda Berber tribes openly erected an independent state in 744, the Barghwata confederation, with their own 'prophet' and syncretist beliefs. The disorder following the death of caliph Hisham in 743 prevented Handhala receiving more assistance from the east. Sensing an opportunity to seize more power for themselves, local Ifriqiyan nobles raised mutinies in the Ifriqiyan garrisons against the Umayyad governor. In late 744 or early 745, Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri, scion of the illustrious Fihrid dynasty, raised a revolt in Tunis and proclaimed himself ruler of Ifriqiya. Although urged to fight