The rulers of Fezzan give their allegiance to the sultan only from the 1580s, but the Turks refrain from trying to exercise any influence here.

The Ottoman Maghrebis formally divide into three regencies—at Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.

After 1565 authority as regent in Tripoli is vested in a pasha appointed by the sultan.

The regency is provided a corps of janissaries, recruited from Turkish peasants who are committed to a lifetime of military service.

The corps is organized into companies, each commanded by a junior officer with the rank of dey (literally, "maternal uncle").

It forms a self-governing military guild, subject to its own laws, whose interests are protected by the Divan, a council of senior officers that also advises the pasha.

In time the pasha's role is reduced to that of ceremonial head of state and figurehead representative of Ottoman suzerainty, as real power comes to rest with the army.

Mutinies and coups are frequent, and generally the janissaries are loyal to whoever pays and feeds them most regularly.

In 1611 the deys stage a successful coup, forcing the pasha to appoint their leader, Suleiman Safar, as head of government—in which capacity he and his successors continue to bear the title dey.

At various times the dey is also pasha-regent.

His succession to office occurs generally amid intrigue and violence.

The regency that he governs is autonomous in internal affairs and, although dependent on the sultan for fresh recruits to the corps of janissaries, his government is left to pursue a virtually independent foreign policy as well.

Tripoli, which has thirty thousand inhabitants at the end of the seventeenth century, is the only city of any size in the regency.

The bulk of its residents are Moors, as city-dwelling Arabs are known.

Several hundred Turks and renegades form a governing elite apart from the rest of the population.

A larger component is the khouloughlis (literally, "sons of servants"), offspring of Turkish soldiers and Arab women who traditionally hold high administrative posts and provide officers for the spahis, the provincial cavalry units that augment the corps of janissaries.

They identify themselves with local interests and are, in contrast to the Turks, respected by the Arabs.

Regarded as a distinct caste, the khouloughlis live in their menshia, a lush oasis located just outside the walls of the city.

Jews and Moriscos, descendants of Muslims expelled from Spain in the sixteenth century, are active as merchants and craftsmen, some of the Moriscos also achieving notoriety as pirates.

A small community of European traders clusters around the compounds of the foreign consuls, whose principal task is to sue for the release of captives brought to Tripoli by the corsairs.

European slaves and larger numbers of enslaved blacks transported from the Sudan are a ubiquitous feature of the life of the city.

Habsburg Spain and the Ottoman Turks are pitted in a struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean throughout the sixteenth century.

Spanish forces had already occupied a number of other North African ports when in 1510 they captured Tripoli, destroyed the city, and constructed a fortified naval base from the rubble.

Tripoli was of only marginal importance to Spain, however, and in 1524 the king-emperor Charles V had entrusted its defense to the Knights of St. John of Malta.

Piracy, which for both Christians and Muslims is a dimension of the conflict between the opposing powers, lures adventurers from around the Mediterranean to the Maghebi coastal towns and islands.

Among them is Khair ad Din, called Barbarossa, who in 1510 had seized Algiers on the pretext of defending it from the Spaniards.

Barbarossa subsequently recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan over the territory that he controlled and was in turn appointed the sultan's regent in the Maghrib.

Using Algiers as their base, Barbarossa and his successors have consolidated Ottoman authority in the central Maghreb, extended it to Tunisia and Tripolitania, and threatened Morocco.

The knights are driven out of Tripoli in 1551 by the Turkish admiral, Sinan Pasha.

In the next year Dragut, a Turkish pirate captain named governor by the sultan, restored order in the coastal towns and undertakes the pacification of the Arab nomads in Tripolitania, although he admits the difficulty of subduing a people "who carry their cities with them."

Ottoman authority is also absent in Cyrenaica, although a bey (commander) is stationed at Benghazi late in the next century to act as agent of the government in Tripoli.

...the remaining troops sail to Bougie, still a Spanish harbor at this time.

Charles can only depart for the open sea on November 23.

He will finally reache Cartagena, in southeast Spain, on December 3.

Algiers had been under the control of the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent since its capture in 1529 by Barbarossa. Barbarossa had left Algiers in 1535 to be named High Admiral of the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, and has been replaced as Governor by Hassan Agha, an eunuch and Sardinian renegade.

Hassan has in his service the well-known Ottoman naval commanders Dragut, Sālih Reïs and Sinān Pasha.

Charles V makes considerable preparations for the expedition, wishing to obtain revenge for the recent siege of Buda; however the Spanish fleet is severely damaged by a storm, forcing him to abandon the venture.

Charles V embarks very late in the season, on September 28, 1541, delayed by troubles in Germany and Flanders. The fleet is assembled in the Bay of Palma, at Majorca. It has more than ffve hundred sails and twenty-four thousand soldiers.

After enduring difficult weather, the fleet only arrives in front of Algiers on October 19. The most distinguished Spanish commanders accompany Charles V on this expedition, including Hernán Cortés, the fifty-six-year-old conqueror of Mexico, though he is never invited to the War Council.

Troops are disembarked on October 23, and Charles establishes his headquarters on a land promontory surrounded by German troops.

German, Spanish, and Italian troops, accompanied by one hundred and fifty knights of Malta, begin to land while repelling Algerine opposition, soon surrounding the city, except for the northern part.

The fate of the city seems to be sealed; however, the following day the weather becomes severe with heavy rains.

Many galleys lose their anchors and fifteen are wrecked onshore. Another thirty-three carracks sink, while many more are dispersed.

As more troops are attempting to land, the Algerines start to make sorties, slaughtering the newly arrived.

Charles V is surrounded, and is only saved by the resistance of the Knights of Malta.
Losses among he invading force are heavy with seventeen galleys and one hundred and thirty carracks lost, plus large numbers of sailors and soldiers.

A Turkish chronicler confirms that the Berber tribes were massacring the twelve thousand men men of the invading forces.

The Hafsid kingdom of Tunis, which stretches from the east of modern Algeria to the west of modern Libya, is in 1550 mired in anarchy, ruled by a council of chieftains that fight other and none of whom recognize the authority of the King of Tunis, Hamid, who had deposed and blinded his father Hasan, a protégé of the Emperor Charles V.

The Ottoman admiral Turgut Reis, with the aid of one of the local leaders, in the spring of 1550 takes control of the coastal town of Mahdia, located atop a rock advanced into the sea and defended by two circles of walls with towers and a citadel encircled by a moat.

Charles V, fearing that the town will become a base for the Barbary corsairs that threaten the Christian shipping in the Western Mediterranean, decides, with the support of  the Papacy and the Knights of Malta, to organize an expedition to capture the city.

The command of the enterprise is entrusted to the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria and to Bernardino de Mendoza, Captain General of the galleys of Spain.

They lead a fleet of fifty-two galleys and twenty-eight naos carrying an army led by Captain General Juan de la Vega, Viceroy of Sicily, and siege weapons and supplies provided by de la Vega himself and the Viceroy of Naples.

The Spanish fleet sets sail to Mahdia on 24 June and arrives there four days later.

The city is defended by the nephew of Turgut Reis, Hesar, who had spent two months locking cattle and storing rice and beans enough to feed the city for a year, in anticipation of being under siege.

The landing of the Spanish troops takes place under the protection of the galleys' cannons and out of Mahdia's gun reach.
Within hours, the Ottoman infantry and cavalry are driven from a hill they occupied, and the next day the city is completely surrounded by trenches dug six hundred meters from the walls.

Luis Pérez de Vargas, mayor of the castle of La Goulette, who is in command of the Spanish artillery, orders to install several heavy pieces on the hill occupied the previous day to cover the locations of the eighteen lighter pieces that had detached to beat the walls.

The same day the first assault is launched, but it is repelled because the moat has not been filled. Despite advancing the artillery close to the walls and improving the trenches, the besiegers, harassed continuously by sallies of the Ottoman garrison, do not made significant progresses in the following days.

The Christian commanders, after a failed attack by Mahdia's defenders, order four galleys to patrol the area during the night to prevent further attacks.

Several others are also sent to Sicily carrying the wounded and ill soldiers and requests for replacements and ammunition, which are provided from Milan, Florence, Lucca and Genoa.

The siege engineers, pending their receipt of reinforcements and munitions,focus on the weakest points of Mahdia's defenses.

García Álvarez de Toledo, 4th Marquis of Villafranca, suggests bombing the walls from the sea, forming a gun battery on two galleys previously demasted and united to each other with hangers and planks.

Nine pieces of artillery are settled on the platform, which is protected by shields and parapet, prior to anchoring the galleys off the walls.

The guns of García Álvarez de Toledo's galleys, along with the land batteries and of the other naval artillery, open fire on the city on September 8.

The bombardment, which does not end until two days later, opens large gaps in Mahdia's defenses.

Then, at the orders of their officers, the Spanish soldiers storm the fortifications in three different points.

An attack is repulsed, but the other two overwhelm the defenders and surprise the remaining Ottoman troops from their rear

The last defenders resist inside the towers for a while, but they are finally defeated.

Governor Hesar is captured, and about seven thousand of Mahdia’s soldiers and civilians are killed or captured.

The Ottoman invasion of the island of Gozo takes place in July 1551, following an unsuccessful attempt to conquer nearby Malta on July 18th.

The Commander of the Ottoman fleet is Sinan Pasha, accompanied by Sala Reis and Turgut Reis.

The Ottomans had initially landed on Malta, at Marsamuschetto, with a force of ten thousand men, and marched upon Birgu and Fort St. Angelo, but resistance was strong, and the Ottomans had had to retreat.

They therefore turn their attention to Mdina, looting and burning the villages on the way.

Meanwhile, the Knights in Mdina, under the command of Fra Villeganion, ask the people living in the villages to seek refuge in the city and to help defend it.

When the Ottomans arrive they discovered a large garrison defending the city, and decide  against their plan of attack as  they did not want to fight a long siege.

A relief fleet meanwhile attacks the Ottoman ships anchored at Marsamxett.

The Ottoman force now decides to attack nearby Gozo island.

After a few days of bombardment, the castle of Gozo, under the command of Governor Gelatian de Sessa, capitulates.

About three hundred people escape from the Citadel by climbing down its walls and hiding from the Ottomans.

Between five and six thousand Christians,  including Governor de Sessa and the Knights are taken captive and end up in slavery, being transported to Tripoli on July 30th.

The Ottomans only spare a monk and forty elderly Gozitans.