 In February 742, Handhala ibn Safwan hurried his Egyptian army westwards and reached Kairouan around April 742, just as Oqasha was returning to try his luck again.Handhala's forces pushed Oqasha back again.When Oqasha was reassembling his forces once more in the Zab, he came across a large Berber army coming from the west, under the command of the Hawwara Berber chieftain Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari (possibly dispatched by the Berber caliph Khalid ibn Hamid al-Zanati, although he is not mentioned in the chronicles).