During the battle at Gettysburg, townspeople gathered to watch what was about to happen. In that spirit… All battle plans begin with a map
Ajdabiya in normal times has a population for about 75,000 people. It isn’t directly involved in the oil business, but probably most of the people who work in the eastern oil fields and refineries live there.
(1) is the road to Sert and ultimately Tripoli.
(2) is the bypass road around the city – you’ll note a one runway military airstrip that looks abandoned. The small road continuing to the NW from the traffic circle goes to what appears to be a refinery on the coast – fed by a different crude oil pipeline
(3) is the road to Benghazi – up that road 100 miles. There is a town named Qamanis in between which probably is not strategically important. Qamanis has a nice beach that people from Benghazi go to.
Benghazi, the Capital City of the Provisional Government of Libya
The Big Picture of Benghazi
(4) is the road to Tubruq – 230 miles in a straight line through the desert with no gas stations
Fill up your gas tank before you go down this road
Tubruq - almost to freedom now
Keep heading east another 70 miles and you arrive at Freedom in Egypt
Free at Last
(5) the road to Jalu (140 miles) and Al-Kufrah (500 miles) down to the oil fields and generally the way you would go to get to Sudan
The bustling market of Jalu
End of the road
(6) is the oil pipeline to Zeuitina to the north – an oil export facility for the Eastern oil fields on the coast. Outside Zeutina is an airport with 2 runways – the longest is about 5,500 feet. It appears to be there to support the oil field workers, not a military airport – but in a pinch…
When the government troops arrived, many of the civilians fled down the road to Tubruq, which is the city behind Benghazi – the way to the Egyptian border. Some are holed up inside abandoned buildings along the highway.
So that’s the neighborhood. What’s in the city of Ajdabiya?
Other than 75,000 people, not much. No airport, no train station (yet), no university – it’s 11 miles from the Mediterranean with a big sand dune in between. The tallest building is 5 stories high. Streets have no names and there are no street lights. There are three banks (as of 2005). There are some Roman era ruins if you’re a history buff… a few mosques, of course… and a few buildings built by the Italians during the occupation era. To the East of town, you’ll find nomadic folks living in their tents
Except that it’s a little bigger, it reminds me a lot of Bartlesville, Oklahoma – a place I spent a year of my life… Seen anything worth dying for yet?
You cannot see anything worth dying for, Its underground, Obama’s War for Oil.