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."