Libyan Coastal Highway
Road in Libya / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Libyan Coastal Highway (Arabic: الطريق الساحلي الليبي), formerly the Litoranea Balbo, is a highway that is the only major road that runs along the entire east-west length of the Libyan Mediterranean coastline. It is a section in the Cairo–Dakar Highway #1 in the Trans-African Highway system of the African Union, Arab Maghreb Union and others.
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Built under the rule of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in colonial Italian Libya in the 1930s, it was named Via Balbia' (or Litoranea Balbo) in honour of governor-general Italo Balbo, but renamed to "Libyan Coastal Highway" after independence and enlarged.
In the First Libyan Civil War of 2011 the highway was a strategic and symbolic element, as the main route through the contested coastal region between Sirte and Benghazi.