sennacherib
Contemporary with the Nubian Taharqa, the Assyrian King Sennacherib was governing the Assyrian Kingdom. When he was informed that Egypt was helping the Syrian and Palestinian states, he hurried with his troops towards the Palestinian coasts and after conquering them he marched upon Jerusalem. Jerusalem was well fortified and he was unable to conquer it. He then left a garrison to continue the siege and continued to Egypt. But along the way, the plague decimated his army and he had to return to Ninve. In 676 BC, Esarhaddon invaded Egypt.
A few years after the invasion, they sacked Thebes, the city of Egypt. Later in 671 BC, Esarhaddon, Sennachenb's son and the King of Assyria (680 BC-669 BC) defeated Taharqa's army, and captured Memphis. According to the record left by Esarhaddon, there was the siege and destruction of Memphis. Memphis was the capital of Egypt and the royal residence of Taharqa. Esarhaddon set out for a further campaign, but he got sick at Harran and died. After Esarhaddon's death, Taharqa was given a chance to regain Memphis from Assyrians and to occupy it. But, in 667 (668) BC, Taharqa was kicked out of Memphis by Ashurbanipal (Esarhaddon's son and the King of Assyria who reigned from 668 to 627 BC).
At the time of Ashurbaipal's Egyptian campaign, the power of Assyria was at its zenith, although one year after the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC, the Assyrians were severely beaten by the Babylonians, and their attempts to regain the lost land never succeeded. In 612 BC, Assyria collapsed, and this resulted in Egypt restoring independence of the Twenty-six Dynasty.