ancient Antipyrgos
Port city (pop., latest est.: 110,000), northeastern Libya.
The site of an ancient Greek agricultural colony, it later had a Roman fortress guarding the frontier of Cyrenaica . For centuries it served as a way station on the coastal caravan route. An Italian military post by 1911, it was the scene of prolonged fighting during World War II (see North Africa campaigns ). The British captured it from the Italians in 1941; it fell to a German siege in 1942 but was recaptured by the British the same year. Rebuilt after the war, it was expanded in the 1960s to include a port terminal linked by pipeline to the Sarīr oil field.