Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, a former Libyan ambassador to India, founded the NFSL on 7 October 1981, at a press conference held in Khartoum, Sudan [REF].
NFSL continued its efforts to topple Gaddafi and formed the Libyan National Army (LNA), after a group of soldiers, taken prisoner by Chad during the Chadian-Libyan conflict, defected from the Libyan Army and joined the NFSL in 1987.