Troops stationed in other parts of Muawiyah's empire were sent on campaigns into remote In North Africa, raids were conducted as far west as Tlemcen in present-day Algeria. More permanent, however, was the conquest of Tripolitania and Ifriqiyah, which was consolidated by the foundation in 670 A.D. of the garrison city of Kairouan, soon to become the base for further expansion later in the Umayyad period. At the same time, a vigorous campaign was being conducted in the east by means of which Muslim borders were extended to the Oxus River and Khorasan was established as an Umayyad province.
Basically, he aimed at increasing organisation and centralisation of the caliphal government in order to exert control over steadily expanding territories. This he achieved by the establishment of -in Damascus to conduct the affairs of government efficiently. Early Arabic sources credit two diwans in particular to Muawiyah: the diwan al-khatam, or chancellery, and the harid, or postal service, both of which were obviously intended to improve communications within the empire.
Expansion under Muawiyah:
The end of civil war within Islam made further expansion of Islam possible, and Muawiyah and the Umayyads began to extend their empire, beginning with raids from Egypt westward across the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Constantinople's emperor sent a force across the Mediterranean to defend what he thought was still his territory, and, in 664 A.D., the Muslims defeated them in a limited engagement. Constantinople's army withdrew, but Constantinople's officialdom and navy remained in North Africa -- the navy stationed at Tunis. And there, Latin- speaking people remained from Roman times. Pursuing his war against Constantinople, in 668 AD. Muawiyah sent his navy north to Constantinople, and in the spring of 669 A.D. he began a siege there. In 670 A.D. the Muslims built a military colony at Kairawan, near Tunis attempt at colonising rather than merely raiding west of Egypt. The Berbers indigenous to the area were hostile toward the colony and, in response to Berber attacks, Muslim warriors from Kairawan began making assaults against them.
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In 671 A.D. Muawiyah resettled 50,000 families in Khurasan -- families from the old garrison towns of Kufa and Basra in Mesopotamia. From Khurasan, Arab men were obliged to join annual expeditions across the Oxus River into the Turkish east, from which they returned only during winter months. These expeditions brought booty to the Arabs and extended Umayyad rule in Transoxiana, where principalities became Arab protectorates. In 672 A.D. the Muslims took control of the island of Rhodes, which they used as an base of operations in their continuing war against Constantinople.
In 674 A.D. they took the island of Crete. Meanwhile, the siege of Constantinople was going poorly. In 674 A.D. Muawiyah sent a greater force against it, but Constantinople's fortifications were too strong, and in 677 A.D. Muawiyah abandoned the project and made peace with Constantinople.
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