Barbarossa ransoms his lieutenant Dragut at the beginning of 1541 in exchange for thirty-five hundred ducats.

Later deemed a mistake, Andrea Doria grants Dragut his freedom in the hope of winning favor if one of his nephews should fall into Ottoman hands.

Taking advantage of Dragut's defeat, Andrea Doria sails from Messina in the summer at the head of fifty-one galleys  and more than thirty galliots and fustas, aboard which are fourteen companies of Spanish infantry led by García de Toledo, Spanish Viceroy of Sicily.

They attack the Ottoman positions at Tunis, seizing the strongholds of Monastir, Sousse, Hammamet and Kelibia, which they return to the Hafsid King Muhammad V.

Barbarossa's privateering campaign is further checked when, on October 1, the Turkish privateers are defeated again by Christian ships at the Battle of Alborán, in the waters east of the Strait of Gibraltar.