In 2015, the armed coalitions supporting Libya's rival governments were embroiled in a brutal civil war in Tripoli and in the Oil Crescent, home of the country's most important oil export infrastructure. Neither side had the strength to overpower the other. Militias from Misrata, a wealthy port city with a long history of revolutionary movements dating to Libya's colonial period under the Italian Empire, forced rival fighters, including a group from the city of Zintan, out of Tripoli. At the same time, Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter and his Libyan National Army managed to push Misratan forces from both the Oil Crescent and the city of Sirte. But in the vacuum left after fighting stopped in Libya in 2015, the Islamic State established a base around Sirte, and from there, it launched attacks westward into Misrata.