Beware Arabs / Berbers talking in English to French reporters. When does a civilian become an enemy combatant? At least the reporter did call them “so called” rebels.
ZITtan (zliten, Zeleitin, etc…) is a city along the road from Tripoli heading east to Misrata – mostly in between the road and the Mediterranean. It isn’t involved in the oil business at all. The area around the city gets enough rain to grow food, and a small river with a dam for water. That’s the city they show on the map in the video
The city goes back to the Roman era (and before). One of the projects the oil money has funded there is a cement plant, and the city also has a University. It seems more connected to Islamic history than some of the other cities in Libya.
Mosque in Zlitan
If you have an astute eye, Zlitan looks nothing like the place in the video, which they name as “Zintan”. az Zintan is nowhere near the coast and is not strategic, which is why it has gotten so little media attention. It’s a town 85 miles south WEST of Tripoli in the desert, on the road to nothing – except the natural gas pipeline from the Western gas fields, that is.
Isn’t it good to know the French have such a good sense of Libyan geography?
What Zintan looks like:
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