After the accession to power of the dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy, the fighting intensified. Due to the Libyan people's effective resistance against Italy's so-called "pacification campaign", the Italian colonization of the Ottoman provinces of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica was initially unsuccessful and it was not until the early 1930s that the Kingdom of Italy took full control of the area. This conflict, known as the Second Italo-Senussi War, ultimately claimed the lives of around 56,000 Libyans.