Map of North Africa

A map I made from one of the blank maps of AH.com. I made this during the height of the Arab Spring, I also made a pretty basic timeline to go along with it:

Colonel Gaddafi responds to the unrest in Egypt faster and even harsher. In a very unusual amount of foresight he recognises he might be next, so immediately cracks down on his people and shuts Libya's borders, airspace etc... The same things occur as in OTL, air force firing on protesters, African mercenaries hired in, however Gaddafi has a head start so it is much worse.

After Libyan police fired on civilians trying to cross the border into Egypt, the local Egyptian army chief orders the men under his command to provide covering fire, which escalates into a conflict which the Egyptians win and force open the border for refugees. This news is spread via the internet until protesters in Benghazi and other Eastern cities are calling for the Egyptian Army to intervene. In Egypt and Tunisia there are growing numbers of people calling for an intervention to spread their revolution into Libya, many sympathise with their neighbours across the border.

The much worse situation in Libya (Protesters only control a few eastern coast cities; Benghazi in TTL is as contested as Tripoli in OTL. You don't want to know what Tripoli is like in TTL, believe me.) and more calls from the Egyptian, Tunisian and defected Libyan ambassadors result in the UN authorising intervention in Libya, mainly by the Tunisian and Egyptian Army backed by a limited coalition air force and navy.

Fighting in the desert is harsh but many Libyan generals in the east and south of the country surrender once they see hope is lost. In the north, once Benghazi is liberated Gaddafi finally sees that his position might be perilous. He orders effectively a purge of Tripolitania. Fewer generals close to Tripoli defect once they have a foreign target to pin blame on, so in the 4 days between the fall of Benghazi and UN forces managing to penetrate into the centre of Tripoli most of the North's oil fields are ablaze, and the cities of Tripoli and Misurata are ruins.

In the aftermath, protesters in Cyrenaica make it clear that they don't want to be ruled by Tripoli (or what's left of it), and so declare a union with Egypt. The ruling military council of Egypt are at first cautious, but in the face of growing pressure and the prospects of huge oil revenue lead them accepting the idea, after a slight border adjustment. Under the auspices of the UN, the United Republic of Cyrenaica and Fezzan declares independence from Tripoli, and the two day later declare they are uniting with Egypt to form the United Republic of North Africa.

As for the rest of the country, the eastern most districts of An Nuqat al Khams and Nalut are placed under Tunisian occupation, and later decide in a plebiscite to join Tunisia in 2012. The rest of the country is renamed the State of Tripolitania and placed under UN administration. Gaddafi's final purge destroyed most of the infrastructure and the people willing to reconstruct, and the current population is less than 2.5 million people. The URNA doesn’t want it, and it can barely rule itself so it becomes another failed state, where even 4 years later the mercenaries hired by Gaddafi terrorise the countryside around Tripoli.

I'm particularly proud of the Tripolitanian flag. Red, white and green were the colours of the region, and the three crescents were an emblem under the Ottomans. Rather unintentionally, the placing of the three with the star in the middle work rather well towards the idea of the three parts of Libya being re-united. I could see that flag being used by a irredentist movement in the state in the future, a fact I imagine could be rather embarrassing for the UN mission who I assume authorised the flag.