A file photo of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
Benghazi (Libya):
Clashes erupted in Tripoli on Friday as security forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Gaddafi used gunfire to try to disperse thousands of protesters who streamed out of mosques after prayers to mount their first major challenge to the government's crackdown in the capital.
As protesters tried to march through the city, they were confronted with sometimes indiscriminate gunfire, and at least several people were wounded and killed, witnesses told news services and the opposition reported on Web sites.
Rebel leaders said they were sending forces from nearby cities and other parts of the country to join the fight. There were also unconfirmed reports that an air base outside of the capital had fallen to rebels.
The renewed violence came even as the government prepared to open Tripoli for the first time to foreign journalists to demonstrate what Colonel Gaddafi and his sons had described as a return normal life there.
But the Gaddafi government seemed not to understand that many of its foreign embassies had gone over to the rebels or shut down, insisting for two days that the journalists invited into the country could go to embassies for visas. Their scramble to make other arrangements on Friday delayed the arrival of most of the foreign journalists as night and chaos settled over Tripoli.
As the day progressed, reports of varying credibility from Libyan exiles and residents of tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Tripoli -- and even of Libyan army units joining them -- competed with another seemingly surreal appearance by Colonel Gaddafi on Libyan state television. It was impossible to know if it was live or pre-recorded.
It showed Colonel Gaddafi at what was supposed to be dusk on Friday speaking from a parapet overlooking the capital's central Green Square and addressing a large crowd -- not of protesters but supporters. There was no sign of resistance, only the sight of thousands of young loyalists, waving the green flag of his government.
"This is the formidable, invincible force of youth," he said. "Life without dignity is useless. Life without green banners hoisted is useless, it is the life of pride, unity and dignity, the green flag flying and hoisted." He blew kisses to the crowd.
He called on them to fight to the death against what he called the foreign aggression overtaking the nation. "Every individual will be armed," he said. "Libya will become a hell."
The antigovernment demonstrators had pledged to take to the streets of the capital on Friday despite threats of a violent crackdown by pro-government mercenaries and security forces, as Colonel Gaddafi tried to maintain his grip on the city that remains one of his last strongholds in a widespread rebellion.
Before prayers had even begun, security personnel deployed around mosques to prevent demonstrations, witnesses said. In their sermons, prayer leaders followed a text that had been imposed by the authorities calling for a "return to stability" and an end to "sedition" and "acts of sabotage," worshipers quoted by news services said.
"The situation is chaotic in parts of Tripoli now," one resident told The Associated Press earlier in the day. Armed militiamen were speeding through the streets, he said. Residents hiding in their homes reported hearing gunfire around the city, according to The A.P.
In the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion began more than a week ago, Idris Agha, a former military officer who is the military coordinator for the interim authority, said that the rebels were now in control of two oil fields. Protesters from embattled cities around Tripoli were headed to the capital in an attempt to shore up opposition forces there, he said. Several former soldiers also said that some 250 defected soldiers from a barracks near Benghazi had left for Tripoli to join the fight.
The protesters in Tripoli appeared emboldened by such promises and the surprisingly strong showing of rebels in nearby cities. On Thursday, rebels repelled a concerted assault by security forces on several cities near the capital, as Libya's patchwork of protests evolved into an increasingly well-armed revolutionary movement.
The series of determined stands by rebel forces -- especially in the strategic city of Zawiyah, near important oil resources and 30 miles from the capital, Tripoli -- presented the gravest threat yet to the Libyan leader. In Zawiyah, more than 100 people were killed as Colonel Gaddafi's forces turned automatic weapons on a mosque filled with protesters, a witness said. Still, residents rallied afterward.
Colonel Gaddafi's evident frustration at the resistance in Zawiyah spilled out in a rant by telephone over the state television network charging that Osama bin Laden had drugged the town's youth into a rebellious frenzy.
On Friday, state television announced that the government would give $400 to every family and raise the salaries of state employees by as much as 150 percent, in an apparent attempt to buy support from the population.
But it was too late to stop some of the most painful defections from the government. Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, one of Gaddafi's top security official and a cousin, left on Wednesday evening, it was confirmed Friday.
He denied allegations that he was asked to recruit Egyptian tribes on the border to fight in Libya and said he went to Egypt to protest Colonel Gaddafi's use of violence and "grave violations to human rights."
Libya's entire Arab League mission resigned for the same reasons Friday, as did its mission in Geneva.
As the violence mounted, international efforts to formulate a response gathered pace. The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to discuss a proposal backed by France and Britain for sanctions against Libyan leaders, including a possible arms embargo and financial sanctions, though no definitive action was expected until next week.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, said he had called an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon in Brussels to discuss the situation in Libya. Humanitarian assistance and the evacuation of foreign citizens would be the priority, he said.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has also said the bloc should consider sanctions like travel restrictions against Libyan leaders and freezing their assets. Britain and Switzerland have already frozen Colonel Gaddafi's assets held in their countries.
The violence has underscored the contrast between the character of Libya's revolution and the uprising that toppled autocrats in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia. Unlike those Facebook-enabled youth rebellions, the insurrection has been led by more mature activists. It started with lawyers' syndicates that have campaigned peacefully for two years for a written constitution and some semblance of a rule of law.
Fueled by popular anger, the help of breakaway leaders of the armed forces and some of their troops, and weapons from looted military stockpiles or smuggled across the border, the uprising here has escalated toward more violence in the face of increasingly brutal government crackdowns.
At the revolt's starting point, in the eastern city of Benghazi, Fathi Terbil, 39, the human rights lawyer whose detention first ignited the protests, drew a map of rebel-held territory in striking distance of Tripoli. "It is only a matter of days," he said.
In Benghazi tens of thousands of people gathered for Friday prayers outside of the courthouse where the protests that led to the rebellion began. The city is now firmly in control of the opposition. Former soldiers who had defected guarded the crowd, aiming rocket propelled grenades upward in case of an attempted aerial attack by Colonel Gaddafi's air force.
The scene, the first Friday prayer service since Benghazi declared itself free from Colonel Gaddafi, was charged with emotion, both triumph and anger. Worshipers cried as an imam, on a stage and through loudspeakers, gave a defiant, impassioned speech about liberating Tripoli, and the fight for justice and freedom. The caskets of dead protesters were presented. A large orange truck brought blankets to use as prayer mats.
As the rebels took steps to organize themselves into a functioning government, the interim authority that is now running the city out the courthouse announced the formation of 13 committees to take care of the city and coordinate the revolution with other parts of the country.
Opposition figures in rebel-held cities like Benghazi have been appearing on cable news channels promising that opponents of Colonel Gaddafi are heading toward Tripoli to bolster the resistance there. Their ability to carry out those assertions remains to be seen.
As protesters tried to march through the city, they were confronted with sometimes indiscriminate gunfire, and at least several people were wounded and killed, witnesses told news services and the opposition reported on Web sites.
Rebel leaders said they were sending forces from nearby cities and other parts of the country to join the fight. There were also unconfirmed reports that an air base outside of the capital had fallen to rebels.
The renewed violence came even as the government prepared to open Tripoli for the first time to foreign journalists to demonstrate what Colonel Gaddafi and his sons had described as a return normal life there.
But the Gaddafi government seemed not to understand that many of its foreign embassies had gone over to the rebels or shut down, insisting for two days that the journalists invited into the country could go to embassies for visas. Their scramble to make other arrangements on Friday delayed the arrival of most of the foreign journalists as night and chaos settled over Tripoli.
As the day progressed, reports of varying credibility from Libyan exiles and residents of tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Tripoli -- and even of Libyan army units joining them -- competed with another seemingly surreal appearance by Colonel Gaddafi on Libyan state television. It was impossible to know if it was live or pre-recorded.
It showed Colonel Gaddafi at what was supposed to be dusk on Friday speaking from a parapet overlooking the capital's central Green Square and addressing a large crowd -- not of protesters but supporters. There was no sign of resistance, only the sight of thousands of young loyalists, waving the green flag of his government.
"This is the formidable, invincible force of youth," he said. "Life without dignity is useless. Life without green banners hoisted is useless, it is the life of pride, unity and dignity, the green flag flying and hoisted." He blew kisses to the crowd.
He called on them to fight to the death against what he called the foreign aggression overtaking the nation. "Every individual will be armed," he said. "Libya will become a hell."
The antigovernment demonstrators had pledged to take to the streets of the capital on Friday despite threats of a violent crackdown by pro-government mercenaries and security forces, as Colonel Gaddafi tried to maintain his grip on the city that remains one of his last strongholds in a widespread rebellion.
Before prayers had even begun, security personnel deployed around mosques to prevent demonstrations, witnesses said. In their sermons, prayer leaders followed a text that had been imposed by the authorities calling for a "return to stability" and an end to "sedition" and "acts of sabotage," worshipers quoted by news services said.
"The situation is chaotic in parts of Tripoli now," one resident told The Associated Press earlier in the day. Armed militiamen were speeding through the streets, he said. Residents hiding in their homes reported hearing gunfire around the city, according to The A.P.
In the eastern city of Benghazi, where the rebellion began more than a week ago, Idris Agha, a former military officer who is the military coordinator for the interim authority, said that the rebels were now in control of two oil fields. Protesters from embattled cities around Tripoli were headed to the capital in an attempt to shore up opposition forces there, he said. Several former soldiers also said that some 250 defected soldiers from a barracks near Benghazi had left for Tripoli to join the fight.
The protesters in Tripoli appeared emboldened by such promises and the surprisingly strong showing of rebels in nearby cities. On Thursday, rebels repelled a concerted assault by security forces on several cities near the capital, as Libya's patchwork of protests evolved into an increasingly well-armed revolutionary movement.
The series of determined stands by rebel forces -- especially in the strategic city of Zawiyah, near important oil resources and 30 miles from the capital, Tripoli -- presented the gravest threat yet to the Libyan leader. In Zawiyah, more than 100 people were killed as Colonel Gaddafi's forces turned automatic weapons on a mosque filled with protesters, a witness said. Still, residents rallied afterward.
Colonel Gaddafi's evident frustration at the resistance in Zawiyah spilled out in a rant by telephone over the state television network charging that Osama bin Laden had drugged the town's youth into a rebellious frenzy.
On Friday, state television announced that the government would give $400 to every family and raise the salaries of state employees by as much as 150 percent, in an apparent attempt to buy support from the population.
But it was too late to stop some of the most painful defections from the government. Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, one of Gaddafi's top security official and a cousin, left on Wednesday evening, it was confirmed Friday.
He denied allegations that he was asked to recruit Egyptian tribes on the border to fight in Libya and said he went to Egypt to protest Colonel Gaddafi's use of violence and "grave violations to human rights."
Libya's entire Arab League mission resigned for the same reasons Friday, as did its mission in Geneva.
As the violence mounted, international efforts to formulate a response gathered pace. The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to meet Friday afternoon to discuss a proposal backed by France and Britain for sanctions against Libyan leaders, including a possible arms embargo and financial sanctions, though no definitive action was expected until next week.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, said he had called an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon in Brussels to discuss the situation in Libya. Humanitarian assistance and the evacuation of foreign citizens would be the priority, he said.
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has also said the bloc should consider sanctions like travel restrictions against Libyan leaders and freezing their assets. Britain and Switzerland have already frozen Colonel Gaddafi's assets held in their countries.
The violence has underscored the contrast between the character of Libya's revolution and the uprising that toppled autocrats in neighboring Egypt and Tunisia. Unlike those Facebook-enabled youth rebellions, the insurrection has been led by more mature activists. It started with lawyers' syndicates that have campaigned peacefully for two years for a written constitution and some semblance of a rule of law.
Fueled by popular anger, the help of breakaway leaders of the armed forces and some of their troops, and weapons from looted military stockpiles or smuggled across the border, the uprising here has escalated toward more violence in the face of increasingly brutal government crackdowns.
At the revolt's starting point, in the eastern city of Benghazi, Fathi Terbil, 39, the human rights lawyer whose detention first ignited the protests, drew a map of rebel-held territory in striking distance of Tripoli. "It is only a matter of days," he said.
In Benghazi tens of thousands of people gathered for Friday prayers outside of the courthouse where the protests that led to the rebellion began. The city is now firmly in control of the opposition. Former soldiers who had defected guarded the crowd, aiming rocket propelled grenades upward in case of an attempted aerial attack by Colonel Gaddafi's air force.
The scene, the first Friday prayer service since Benghazi declared itself free from Colonel Gaddafi, was charged with emotion, both triumph and anger. Worshipers cried as an imam, on a stage and through loudspeakers, gave a defiant, impassioned speech about liberating Tripoli, and the fight for justice and freedom. The caskets of dead protesters were presented. A large orange truck brought blankets to use as prayer mats.
As the rebels took steps to organize themselves into a functioning government, the interim authority that is now running the city out the courthouse announced the formation of 13 committees to take care of the city and coordinate the revolution with other parts of the country.
Opposition figures in rebel-held cities like Benghazi have been appearing on cable news channels promising that opponents of Colonel Gaddafi are heading toward Tripoli to bolster the resistance there. Their ability to carry out those assertions remains to be seen.
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