Libya (1983: Doomsday)

Pre-Doomsday
Libya has for many thousands of years been fought over by various world superpowers, Libya was ruled over by the Romans, then the Arabs, then the Ottoman empire and until the end of the second world war it was ruled by the Italians however after the war ended the United Kingdom took control of the country as a British administration colony. In 1951 Libya declared independance from the UK as a constitutional monarchy under Sultan Idris.

On September 1, 1969, a small group of military officers led by then 27-year-old army officer Muammar al-Gaddafi staged a coup d'état against Sultan Idris, launching the Libyan Revolution. At the time, Idris was in Turkey for medical treatment. His nephew, Crown Prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi, became King. It was clear that the revolutionary officers who had announced the deposition of Sultan Idris did not want to appoint him over the instruments of state as King. Gaddafi was at the time only a captain and his co-conspirators were all junior officers. Nevertheless the small group seized Libyan military headquarters (due to the sympathies of the stationed men) and the radio broadcasting station with 48 rounds of revolver ammunition. Before the end of September 1, Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida had been formally deposed by the revolutionary army officers and put under house arrest. Meanwhile, revolutionary officers abolished the monarchy, and proclaimed the new Libyan Arab Republic. Gaddafi was, and is till Doomsday, referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official press.

Since the early 1980's Libya began to distance itself from the USA. On August 19, 1981 the US navy was sent close to Libya's coast which resulted in a confrontation where two of the SU-22 fighters supplied to Libya by the Soviet Union were shot down. Following this, Libya was implicated in committing mass acts of state-sponsored terrorism.

Doomsday
On Doomsday Libya itself was not attacked, however due to the destruction of many of it's trade partners and the fact that the military were fighting a war on the border with Chad to the south, the military and government leaderships were stretched to the point of breaking point.

In October 1983 Colonel Gaddafi orders the military to withdraw from the war with Chad to guard the borders from possible invasion.

In early January 1984 a military coup overthrows Gaddafi (his fate is unknown, however it is assumed that he was exectued), due to major infighting between the members of the new leadership, a brief civil war broke out in late 1984 between the two highest ranking military leaders. Within 6 months of fighting both sides had almost wiped each other out and the country had collasped into anarchy and chaos. With no main security forces many warlords take control of towns throughout the country these continued infighting for many years, reducing the population of the country further.

International investigators assessed that Libya as a independant country seased to exist sometime early in 1985.

Since the atmospheric upheavals initiated by Doomsday rainfall across the Sahara Desert has increased to a point where it is now starting to take on the appearance of a dry savanna type landscape.

After Libya
In recent years the eastern parts of the former country have been taken over by Egypt and much of the coastline has been taken over by the Greek state of Cyrenaica.

Due to the large reserves of oil that have been discovered in the desert of former Libya (estimated at 40 billion barrels) it is expected that either Egypt or possibly the Greek Federation may try and take control of the area. It is possible that there may be conflict in the future.