Mass grave found in Libya with remains of 1,270

Sept. 25, 2011 Associated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya — Libyan revolutionary authorities say they have discovered a mass grave containing the remains of 1,270 inmates killed by the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in a 1996 prison massacre.

The site was found near Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, where the victims were killed on June 26, 1996, after protesting conditions at the facility.

The announcement was made Sunday by Dr. Ibrahim Abu Sahima of the government committee overseeing the search for victims of the former regime.

He says investigators found the grave two weeks ago after getting information from captured regime officials and witnesses.

Officials will ask for international assistance in identifying the remains.

Wars and Revolutions

[col. writ. 6/15/11] (c) '11 Mumia Abu-Jamal

  As NATO targets Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Qadhafi, the cover story, that its
bombastic efforts are designed to 'protect civilians', is wearing exceedingly
thin.

  Daily, its efforts, including the targeting of Qadhafi for assassination and he
killing of members of his family, look like regime change - suspiciously similar
to Iraq of several years ago.

  As for the assassination charge, Britains' Sir David Richards, Chief of the
Defense staff, answered questions to that effect by declaring, "Absolutely not.
It is not allowed under the UN Resolution" (LATUR 94/11, 71.  Those assurances
were blasted into confetti by leading British politicians.

  Indeed, the Iraqi pattern is virtually identical: demonization in the corporate
press, no fly zones, bombing aimed at the leader and/or his family, and (once
assassination is accomplished) the installation of a compliant, Western-friendly
puppet who acquiesces to the looting of his country's natural resources for
foreign profit.

  When did the West ever care about Arabs? (Other than sheikhs or princes, that
is.)  David Morrison, writing in a recent edition of Labour & Trade Union Review*
answers the question thusly:

         It is inconceivable that the Governments of France and Britain and the US
embarked on this mission out of concern for the lives of Libyan civilians.
In recent years, the US itself has killed hundreds  of civilians in
         Pakistan in drone attacks, triggered from the safety of mainland US.  The
slaughter has intensified under the Obama administration and it is still
going on. Has France or Britain  ever expressed any concern for these
civilian killings, carried out regularly by their close ally? Of course
not. {8}

  Morrison goes on to write of the thousands of Lebanese and Palestinians killed by
Israeli bombing in 2006 and 2008 - 2009, "without any call for a No Fly Zone"
from any of the states now leveling Libya.

  Morrison notes: "In the case of Lebanon in the Summer of 2006, the US and Britain
acted to prolong the conflict, and the killing: {8}

  Clearly, Morrison writes, "another reason", motivates the Western powers other
than the  suffering or the bombing of Arab civilians, which they, or their
allies, do with reckless abandon.

  Morrison writes:
         Though Qadhafi has accommodated himself to Western interests in recent
years, and opposes Al Qaeda, he has maintained  the coherence of the Arab
nationalist State he has built, and retained a form of Socialism in its
structures. This is intolerable to Western interests, which prefer to see
a mess a la Iraq, rather than a strong State pursuing the interests of its
people in its own way. The plan, therefore, is to destroy the Libyan State
under humanitarian and democratic guise. It is no concern of the West that
it may be unleashing a bloodbath. 

  First Iraq, then Libya; that leaves the last Arab Socialist State, Syria.  That's
why France and Britain and the US are bombing Libya. {8}

  My sentiments, exactly.

--(c) '11 maj
{*Source: Morrison, David, "Libya", Labour & Trade Union Review, April, 2011, [No.
216. 6-8]
(Note: L&TUR is published in London, UK: (www.ltureview.com)

Open discussion on Libya

Jaan Laaman wants to have an open discussion about Libya in the next
4Struggle Mag (coming out late July). Send him your thoughts on the topic
and other relevant info.


Jaan Laaman #10372-016
U.S. Penitentiary Tucson
P.O. Box 24550
Tucson, AZ 85734

Hundreds of women report rapes by Gadhafi forces

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press May 28, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya – At first, the responses to the questionnaire about the
trauma of the war in Libya were predictable, if tragic: 10,000 people
suffering post-traumatic stress, 4,000 children with psychological
problems. Then came the unexpected: 259 women said they had been raped by
militiamen loyal to Moammar Gadhafi.

Dr. Seham Sergewa had been working with children traumatized by the
fighting in Libya but soon found herself being approached by troubled
mothers who felt they could trust her with their dark secret.

The first victim came forward two months ago, followed by two more. All
were mothers of children the London-trained child psychologist was
treating, and all described how they were raped by militiamen fighting to
keep Gadhafi in power.

Sergewa decided to add a question about rape to the survey she was
distributing to Libyans living in refugee camps after being driven from
their homes. The main purpose was to try to determine how children were
faring in the war; she suspected many were suffering from PTSD.

To her surprise, 259 women came forward with accounts of rape. They all
said the same thing.

"I was really surprised when I started visiting these areas, first by the
number of people suffering from PTSD, including the large number of
children among them, and then by the number of women who had been raped
from both the east and west of the country," Sergewa said in an interview
with The Associated Press.

Rape has been a common weapon of war throughout the ages, most recently in
conflicts from the Balkans in Europe to Sri Lanka in Asia and in
sub-Saharan Africa, where Congo has been described as the epicenter of
sexual crimes.

Across the world, rape carries a stigma. But it can be a deadly one in
conservative Muslim societies like Libya, where rape is considered a stain
on the honor of the entire family. Victims can be abandoned by their
families and, in some cases, left in the desert to die. Speaking to a
journalist is out of the question.

Sergewa's questionnaire was distributed to 70,000 families and drew 59,000
responses.

"We found 10,000 people with PTSD, 4,000 children suffering psychological
problems and 259 raped women," she said, adding that she believes the
number of rape victims is many times higher but that woman are afraid to
report the attacks.

The women said they had been raped by Gadhafi's militias in numerous
cities and towns: Benghazi, Tobruk, Brega, Bayda and Ajdabiya (where the
initial three mothers hail from) and Saloum in the east; and Misrata in
the west.

Some just said they had been raped. Some did not sign their names; some
just used their initials. But some felt compelled to share the horrific
details of their ordeals on the back of the questionnaire.

Reading from the scribbled Arabic on the back of one survey, Sergewa
described one woman's attack in Misrata in March, while it was still
occupied by Gadhafi's forces.

"First they tied my husband up," the woman wrote. "Then they raped me in
front of my husband and my husband's brother. Then they killed my
husband."

Another woman in Misrata said she was raped in front of her four children
after Gadhafi fighters burned down her home.

"She ran away with her children and tried to escape to the port, but then
they started shelling the port. In the chaos, she was separated from the
children," Sergewa said.

"She was distraught when I interviewed her, not knowing if her children
were dead or alive. I wish I knew the end of her story, but I don't know
what happened to her."

Doctors at hospitals in Benghazi, the rebel bastion, said they had heard
of women being raped but had not treated any. The first international
airstrikes on March 19 saved the city from falling into the hands of
Gadhafi forces who were advancing in columns of tanks.

However, a doctor in Ajdabiya, 100 miles (150 kilometers) south of
Benghazi, said he treated three women who said they were raped by Gadhafi
fighters in March when the town was invaded.

"These women were terrified their families would find out — two were
married, one was single," Dr. Suleiman Refadi said. "They only came to me
because they also were terrified that they may have been infected with the
AIDS virus." He said they had tested negative but doubted they would
return for follow-up tests.

Gadhafi's fighters were forced out of Ajdabiya weeks ago and the town now
is largely deserted but for the rebels.

In a highly publicized case in Libya, Iman al-Obeidi burst into the hotel
housing foreign journalists in Tripoli in March and accused pro-Gadhafi
militiamen of gang-raping her because she is from rebel-held eastern
Libya. Her anguished disclosure was captured by Western cameras and shown
around the world.

Earlier this month, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in
The Hague, Luis Moreno-Campo, said he has "strong evidence" of crimes
against humanity committed by Gadhafi's regime, including serious
allegations of "women arrested and gang raped."

One of Libya's leading psychiatrists, Dr. Ali M. Elroey, told the AP that
he has set up three mobile teams to treat trauma victims of the war in
their homes or in temporary shelters: one for PTSD, one for other
psychological problems and one for rape survivors.

Elroey said they need to reach out to people in their homes because the
stigma associated with psychiatric care is leaving large numbers of
patients untreated.

His outpatient clinic at Benghazi's psychiatric hospital has treated more
than 600 patients in two months, many responding to radio and newspaper
advertisements offering psychiatric help for war trauma. He said most were
women, though none had acknowledged being raped.

Sergewa said she has interviewed 140 of the rape survivors in various
states of mental anguish, and has been unable to persuade a single victim
to prosecute. None would speak to the AP about her ordeal, even with a
promise to hide her identity.

"Some I diagnosed with acute psychosis; they are hallucinating," Sergewa
said. "Some are very depressed; some want to commit suicide. Some want
their parents to kill them because they don't want their families to bear
the shame."

Some already have been abandoned by their husbands and fear seeking
treatment could get them ostracized or cast out of their communities.
Others have kept the rapes a secret for fear of retribution from spouses.
"They fear their husbands will take them out to the desert and leave them
there to die," Sergewa said.

It is likely more rapes could occur as the conflict drags on, Sergewa said.

"They are using rape not just to hurt women but to terrorize entire
families and communities," Sergewa said. "The women I spoke to say they
believed they were raped because their husbands and brothers were fighting
Gadhafi.

"I think it is also to put shame on the tribes or the villages, to scare
people into fleeing, and to say: 'We have raped your women,'" she said.

Sergewa says women will continue to be targets of the militiamen, and this
makes it all the more urgent to finish her study and get it published.

"We must throw light on what is really happening in Libya and fight to
bring justice for these women, to help heal them psychologically," she
said.

___

Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed to this report from The
Hague.

Libyan woman who claimed rape gets death threats

April 4, 2011 Associated Press

NEW YORK – A Libyan woman who says she is the person who burst into a
Tripoli hotel to tell foreign journalists that she had been gang raped by
Moammar Gadhafi's troops told a CNN interviewer Monday that she is out of
custody but is receiving death threats from regime loyalists.

CNN said it was confident that the woman interviewed is in fact Iman
al-Obeidi, who made international headlines on March 26 when she was
dragged away from the Rixos Hotel by government agents as she screamed her
allegations of rape to foreign reporters.

The CNN interviewer, Anderson Cooper, said the network could not be
certain the woman they spoke to by telephone is al-Obeidi, but they were
satisfied it was her after days of research and from the testimony of
several people who had talked with al-Obeidi at the hotel and with the
women interviewed. She spoke in Arabic through a female translator, but
was not shown on camera.

The story she told was also consistent with the account al-Obeidi gave at
the hotel.

She said, "There is no safe place for me in Tripoli. All my phones are
monitored, even this phone I am speaking on right now is monitored. And I
am monitored."

"Yesterday I was kidnapped by a car and they beat me in the street, then
brought me here after I was dragged around," she said.

"Yes, yes, I want to leave Tripoli. In the middle of the night I get
nightmares, and I feel threats 24 hours a day. They are constantly
threatening me, with death."

The woman interviewed by CNN said that after the initial hotel uproar,
Gadhafi's militamen bought her new clean clothes and took her to the
Libyan TV station to have her broadcast a recantation of her story, to say
that the rebels had raped her, but she refused to do so.

"The TV station has no credibility and I was fearing the consequences,"
she told CNN. "Behind the camera, I was facing 15 Kalashnikovs."

On Sunday and Monday, al-Obeidi did telephone interviews with two TV
networks, but she was not seen. A government official said she had an
agreement not to talk to reporters, but she was blocked from getting to
the reporters' hotel again on Sunday.

The last time al-Obeidi, who is from eastern Libya, which is now in rebel
hands, was seen was when she was dragged away from the hotel on March 26.
She had gone to the hotel after she said she had escaped her gang-rape
ordeal.

She said that Gadhafi forces originally abducted her from a taxi at a
checkpoint, repeatedly raped her and held her captive for two days.

"Of course they had my hands tied behind me, and they had my legs tied,
and they would hit me when I was tied, and they would bite me, and they
would pour alcohol in my eyes so I would not be able to see," she told
CNN.

"One of them, when my hands were still tied, before he raped me he
sodomized me with his Kalashnikov rifle," she said.

"They said, 'Let the men from eastern Libya come and see how we treat
their women, and how we rape them, and abuse them.'"

She managed to escape after she was untied by another captive, a
16-year-old girl, she told CNN.

The woman who spoke to CNN claimed she was detained and beaten when she
tried to reach reporters in the Rixos Hotel a second time on Sunday.

She told CNN that she earlier was stopped from leaving the country at the
Tunisian border and returned to Tripoli. The Tunisian border is to the
west of Tripoli.

On Sunday a Libyan dissident network based in Qatar played a phone
interview where a woman claiming to be al-Obeidi said Libyan authorities
had declined her request to join her parents in Tobruk. Tobruk, near the
Egyptian border, is under rebel control.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said al-Obeidi had made a deal with
the attorney general not to speak to reporters so as not to compromise her
case, and that he was aware that al-Obeidi was trying to reach media on
Sunday.

"She broke her agreement with the attorney general by trying to speak to
the media and was taken away," Ibrahim told The Associated Press.

Ibrahim said he didn't know what happened to al-Obeidi after she was taken
away from the hotel.

Afaf Youssef, a woman the government said is al-Obeidi's lawyer, told The
Associated Press on Monday that her client was refusing to speak to
reporters because her case was under investigation.

Youssef said she was one of two lawyers taking up al-Obeidi's criminal
case against the men who she says raped her. She also denied earlier
government claims that al-Obeidi was a prostitute.

Al-Obeidi's rape claim could not be independently verified. The Associated
Press identifies only rape victims who volunteer their names.

Ex-inmate in Libya tells of arrest, prison horrors

By RYAN LUCAS, Associated Press March 9, 2011

BENGHAZI, Libya – Fadlallah Haroun recounted how masked men grabbed him on
the street, handcuffed him and threw a sack over his head, then tossed him
into a waiting vehicle and sped off. Seven years later, he emerged from
Moammar Gadhafi's prisons without ever being charged.

Haroun's odyssey took him from the underground cells of the Katiba jail in
his hometown of Benghazi to the notorious Abu Selim prison in Tripoli,
where Libyan groups outside the country said up to 1,200 prisoners were
killed in 1996. Along the way, he said he endured daily beatings, mock
executions and psychological terror.

"When I was in prison, I met so many people who suffered the same thing I
did just for expressing their opinion," said Haroun, 45, over coffee in a
sitting room lined with low green couches at a family home in Benghazi.

Now that eastern Libya has ripped itself free from Gadhafi's grip,
residents finally feel safe to talk about what life was like under the
regime. Their stories are stamped with the terror, paranoia and sinking
sense of desperation that Gadhafi instilled in his people since taking
power in a 1969 coup.

A U.S. State Department report from last year accused the Libyan
government of failing to observe provisions of its own criminal code on
pretrial detention and arbitrary arrest and detention. It accused security
services of detaining individuals without formal charges, holding them
indefinitely without court convictions, and keeping them incommunicado for
unlimited periods.

For Haroun, a businessman who imported raw materials from Italy for
furniture, the worst of it began on April 23, 1995, with a phone call. A
voice on the line asked him to present himself at the police station in
Benghazi for a few questions. The masked security service men stopped
Haroun as he was getting into his car to drive to the station.

"I was surprised, I didn't have any problems, no reason to go — I'm a
businessman, not a criminal," Haroun said. "I had no political activity
since I traded and traveled.

"I always came back and expressed my opinion in private with friends and
family. I condemned the situation in Libya, talked about the need for
reform, and explained what life was like outside," he said.

The security services told him that he was from "a trouble-making family,
and accused me of harassment of the state and the system," Haroun said.

They also accused him of currying popularity with local residents by
donating food to the poor during the Eid holiday that marks the end of the
holy month of Ramadan. Such charity is a tradition throughout the Muslim
world.

Haroun was taken to the internal security offices in downtown Benghazi and
moved from there to the Katiba, a large security base in the suburbs. The
walled facility houses low-rise whitewashed buildings, a one-story villa
for Gadhafi with an elevator, a parade ground and three cavernous
underground bunkers where mainly political prisoners were held.

"People who ended up in those just disappeared for good," Haroun said
during a tour of the base, which was stormed and torched by protesters in
a bloody battle during the early days of the uprising last month.

Haroun did not end up there. Instead, he was held in a small corner cell —
its walls etched with graffiti from previous prisoners — in the basement
of a building on the base for two weeks before being transferred to Abu
Selim prison.

His family knew he had been detained — when people disappeared in
Gadhafi's Libya, it was understood the security services had them — but
they had no clue of his whereabouts or condition.

"It took my family six years to find out where I was," he said, shaking
his head.

Although Haroun was out of the picture, the family was not left in peace.
The security services conducted what Haroun called "psychological warfare"
on them. His younger brother, Osama, was expelled from his university,
where he was studying political science and economics. The whole family
was banned from working and their cars were confiscated.

Security agents would routinely storm the family's Benghazi home, break
down the door and arrest one of his brothers, then release him days later,
Haroun said.

Haroun's 80-year-old mother, fingering prayer beads and nodding as she
listened to her son recount the ordeal, said the attacks on their home
became so frequent that "we eventually just left the door unlocked so they
could come in and didn't have to break it down. It was just cheaper that
way."

Haroun spent most of his time behind bars in Abu Selim prison, where cells
were cramped and filthy, he said. In some, there was no bedding and
inmates slept on the ground next to the stinking hole in the ground used
as a toilet. There was just enough food to survive.

"One of the daily 'meals' was a 9 p.m. beating — that was my meal," he
said with a laugh. "Everyday at 9 p.m. That lasted for 45 days."

Besides the grueling daily grind, there were searing flashes of terror.

Haroun said he was once brought blindfolded into what his guards called a
courtroom, where he was sentenced to hang. "They had me stand on a stool
and placed a noose around my neck," he said, acting out in his living room
how the rope was put over his head. "And then they kicked the stool out
from under me. Somebody caught me as I fell."

Another time, he was taken blindfolded in front of a firing squad. The
gunmen shot blanks, he said.

"These courts were psychologically brutal. Some people who went through
that were mentally out of it for days, others lost their hair," he said.

Because he and many other prisoners like him were never charged or
convicted, there was no set release date. The security services could hold
them forever, or free them on a whim.

"Every morning we hoped to be released because we were never sentenced,"
he said.

His day came on Dec. 13, 2001.

The Libyan government confirmed his release from prison in 2001.

Once out, he returned home but could not earn a living; the regime had
banned him and his family from working. He could not leave the country,
because he was barred from traveling abroad.

As he spoke, his 3-year-old son Haidar — one of his five children —
bounced into the room and nestled into the folds of his father's brown
leather jacket. Haroun kissed the little boy on the forehead, grinned and
said: "I made up for my time behind bars."

His family managed to survive with the help of a younger brother, Youssef,
who fled to Britain in 1995 after Haroun disappeared. Youssef sent money
from Manchester, England, to the family in Libya through secret channels.

Some of the scars that Gadhafi's regime inflicted on the family cannot be
healed.

A Human Rights Watch report in 2003 cited accounts of a mass killing in
Abu Selim prison in summer 1996. Libyan groups outside the country said up
to 1,200 prisoners died. The government denied that any crimes took place,
saying that prisoners and guards died as security personnel tried to
restore order in the prison, according to Human Rights Watch.

One of those who died at the prison was Haroun's brother, Ali, a former
army major.

Another brother, Jomaa, resigned from the external intelligence agency to
protest the regime's policies. He was run over by a car and killed while
sitting curbside at a Cairo cafe. Haroun said there was no investigation,
and the family believes he was targeted by the regime.

After the uprising began in Benghazi on Feb. 15, the protesters stormed
the internal security offices in the city. A friend soon telephoned Haroun
and said he'd recovered his security file from the ransacked offices.

The thick cardboard binder with the number 257 written in black ink on the
spine now is in Haroun's hands. He flipped through the pages — the
surveillance orders, the prison mug shots, the informant reports — and
closed it.

Those days of torment, Haroun hopes, are over.


BBC: Staff subjected to mock execution in Libya

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Mar 9, 2011

LONDON – Three British Broadcasting Corp. staff were detained, beaten and
subjected to mock executions by pro-regime soldiers in Libya while
attempting to reach the western city of Zawiya, the broadcaster said
Wednesday.

The news organization said the crew, members of a BBC Arabic team, were
detained on Monday by Moammar Gadhafi loyalists at a check point about 6
miles (10 kilometers) south of Zawiya.

Chris Cobb-Smith, a British journalist and part of the crew, said the
group were moved between several locations, in some cases alongside
civilian captives who had visible injuries from heavy beatings.

On Tuesday, the crew were driven to a building in Tripoli which they
believed was the headquarters of Libya's overseas intelligence service.
The men were told to bow their heads and line along a wall by soldiers.

"A man with a small submachine gun was putting it to the nape of
everyone's neck in turn. He pointed the barrel at each of us. When he got
to me at the end of the line, he pulled the trigger twice. The shots went
past my ear," Cobb-Smith said.

The BBC said the men were held for 21 hours before they were released, and
have since left Libya. It reported the details of their detention in
bulletins late on Wednesday.

Liliane Landor, an executive at BBC Global News, said the organization
would continue to cover the conflict in Libya, despite the attack on its
staff. "The BBC strongly condemns this abusive treatment of our
journalists and calls on the Libyan government to ensure all media are
able to report freely and are protected from persecution," she said.

Feras Killani, another of the crew, said in one location he was forced to
his knees while a guard cocked a gun in a mock execution. "I thought they
were going to shoot me," he told the BBC.

Killani said he was accused of being a British spy, abused for his
Palestinian heritage and beaten by guards. One captor struck him "with his
fist, then boots, then knees. Then he found a plastic pipe on the ground
and beat me with that. Then one of the soldiers gave him a long stick."

Cameraman Goktay Koraltan, who is Turkish, said he feared for the crew
lives. "I thought they would shoot us, I could hear guns loading. I was
scared to death I thought it was the execution moment," he said.

Killani said four other men being held in one facility told him they had
been without food for three days and had been repeatedly tortured. Others
had visible signs of abuse, including broken ribs, he said.

Gaddafi fights to regain control

Embattled Libyan leader launches military and diplomatic offensive in a
bid to cling to power as rebels close in on him.

March 5, 2011 Al Jazeera

Rebels have wrested the entire eastern half of the country from Gaddafi's
grip [EPA]

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has launched a fresh military
offensive after having lost control of large swathes of his country over
the past 18 days.

Opposition to his decades-old rule has quickly swelled into a full-blown
rebellion, but Gaddafi stepped up attacks on Friday. By Saturday morning,
his forces broke through opposition defences in the city of Az Zawiyah
after heavy shelling, eyewitnesses told Al Jazeera.

"There is a very tragic situation in the city," Ahmed, a resident in Az
Zawiyah, said. "We were expecting the world to intervene but they have let
us down."

"They are shooting at Libyan citizens and we have made up our mind that we
will die," he said, as Gaddafi's forces continued to shell the town.

"It's not a matter of oil or gas being taken out of our country, it's
human lives, he said, pleading for the United Nations or the Arab League
to step in to protect Libyan civilians.

At least 30 people were killed in fierce clashes in the town by Friday
evening, as the two sides battled to control it. The death toll has
continued to climb.

The loyalist forces attacked residential areas in the city with tanks and
armoured vehicles. Gaddafi's security forces were using ambulances to
kidnap wounded people, Human Rights Solidarity, a Geneva-based
organisation, told Al Jazeera.

"Most of those attacking us are mercenaries," Lutfi Az-Zawi told Al Jazeera.

Deadlock

The opposition has wrested the entire eastern half of the country from
Gaddafi's grip, along with several cities in the west close to the capital
Tripoli, which is now symbolic to his defiance.

In the past few weeks, the opposition forces were able to fend off several
assaults on the territory they control.

Members of Gaddafi's government, diplomats, soldiers and even some of his
closest allies have renounced their allegiance, and foreign leaders are
becoming increasingly vocal in their calls for the besieged leader to step
down.
LIVE BLOG

Anti-Gaddafi protests had been planned on Friday afternoon in the capital,
but Al Jazeera's Anita McNaught reported that security personnel were out
in force in sensitive parts of the city, and quickly surrounded people who
appeared likely to demonstrate.

"Tripoli itself is a city almost completely locked down, electronic
communications cut off for the previous 24 hours, shops shut, particularly
nobody on the street," she said.

Meanwhile, rebels claimed control of the strategic town of Ras Lanouf,
after exchanging heavy shelling and machine gun fire with pro-Gaddafi
forces on Friday.

It was unclear what the rebels would do following the battle in Ras Lanuf.
The next major town along the coastal road to the west is Sirte, Gaddafi's
home town.

The fighting underlined how both sides are pushing against the deadlock.
Both sides are struggling to take new territory, Al Jazeera’s Jacky
Rowland reported.

"The situation in the east of the country is really a stalemate, with
anti-Gaddafi forces either unable or unwilling to advance further to the
west and to try to take the fight closer to Gaddafi's strongholds like
Sirte and Tripoli," she said.

"If you look at the rebel forces, they're a rather undisciplined, orderly
bunch," she said.

For many of the anti-Gaddafi fighters, this is their first military
experience.

The opposition has rejected the possibility of a nation divided between
the east and a Gaddafi west.

Rebel heartland

On Friday evening, at least 12 people were killed and another 10 injured
after explosions took place at an ammunition dump near Benghazi. There
were conflicting reports regarding the cause of the blast.

Hospital sources said it was triggered when people went into the storage
facility to collect weapons, while others blamed pro-Gaddafi forces.

In Benghazi itself, where the uprising began, there was more defiance on
Friday. Religious leaders there called for the people to keep up the
fight.
Read more of our Libya coverage

"Gadaffi is in hiding, He is not representing anybody any longer. He is a
coward and he won't challenge the people and it is only a matter of time,"
Mahdee Kashbour, a member of the Opposition Transitional Committee, a
newly established authority, told Al Jazeera.

Yet even in the rebels' heartland, there is caution. People there know
Gadaffi has weathered international storms and sanctions before most
notably after the downing of Pan Am 103 flight more than 20 years ago.

"We need to think about the people in Tripoli, we need to think about the
life of Libyans first as a priority," Dr. Hana El Jalal, a Libyan analyst
said, calling on the international community to act immediately.

“Throughout Libya today, there is still uncertainty, there is still anger
and there is still death,” Al Jazeera’s Tony Birtley reported.

Diplomatic battles

In a bid to push back on the diplomatic front, Gaddafi's government on
Friday asked that Ali Abdussalam Treki, a senior Libyan diplomat, be
accepted as the country's new envoy to the UN.

Gaddafi's government made its first official reaction to sanctions
announced by the UN, in a letter by Mussa Kussa, his foreign minister.

The letter called for the travel ban and assets freeze ordered against
Gaddafi and his close aides "to be suspended until such time as the truth
is established".

Kussa demanded that the Security Council "stand up to the states that are
threatening force against it."

The foreign minister added that military action against Libya would be
"inconsistent" with the UN charter and international law and "compromise a
threat to peace and security in the region and indeed the whole world."

Western powers say they are studying a no-fly zone against Libya to
prevent attacks on civilians. Yet diplomats say that no official request
for such action has been made to the UN Security Council.

Gaddafi vows to crush protesters

Libyan leader speaks to supporters in the capital's Green Square, saying
he will arm people against protesters.

Feb 25, 2011 Al Jazeera

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has appeared in Tripoli's Green
Square, to address a crowd of his supporters in the capital.

The speech, which also referred to Libya's war of independence with Italy,
appeared to be aimed at rallying what remains of his support base, with
specific reference to the country's youth.

"We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people," Gaddafi
said, in footage that was aired on Libyan state television on Friday.

"I am in the middle of the people.. we will fight … we will defeat them if
they want … we will defeat any foreign aggression.

"Dance … sing and get ready … this is the spirit … this is much better
than the lies of the Arab propaganda," he said.

His last speech, on Thursday evening had been made by phone, leading to
speculation about his physical condition.

The footage aired on Friday, however, showed Gaddafi standing above the
square, waving his fist as he spoke.

Tarik Yousef, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington,
told Al Jazeera that most of the individuals on Green Square are genuine
Gaddafi supporters.

"Most of these people have known nothing else but Gaddafi. They don’t know
any other leader. And many of them stand to lose when Gaddafi falls,"
Yousef said.

"I am not completely surprised that they still think that he is the right
man for Libya. What is striking is that [Gaddafi] did not talk about all
the liberated cities in his country.

"This was a speech intended show his defiance and to rally against what he
calls foreign interference. But even his children have admitted that the
east of the country is no longer under the regime's control."

Gaddafi's speech came on a day when tens of thousands of Libyans in
Tripoli and elsewhere in the country took to the streets calling for an
end to his rule.

Heavy gunfire

As demonstrations began in Tripoli following the midday prayer, security
forces loyal to Gaddafi reportedly began firing on them. There was heavy
gunfire in various Tripoli districts including Fashloum, Ashour, Jumhouria
and Souq Al, sources told Al Jazeera.

"The security forces fired indiscriminately on the demonstrators," said a
resident of one of the capital's eastern suburbs.

"There were deaths in the streets of Sug al-Jomaa," the resident said.

The death toll since the violence began remains unclear, though on
Thursday Francois Zimeray, France's top human rights official, said it
could be as high as 2,000 people killed.
Follow more of Al Jazeera's special coverage here

But Saif al-Islam, Muammar Gaddafi's son, has called on the European Union
to send a fact-finding team to Libya.

"We are not afraid of the facts. We are worried about rumours and lies,"
he said.

Violence flared up even before the Friday sermons were over, according to
a source in Tripoli.

"People are rushing out of mosques even before Friday prayers are finished
because the state-written sermons were not acceptable, and made them even
more angry," the source said.

Libyan state television aired one such sermon on Friday, in an apparent
warning to protesters.

"As the prophet said, if you dislike your ruler or his behaviour, you
should not raise your sword against him, but be patient, for those who
disobey the rulers will die as infidels," the speaker told his
congregation in Tripoli.

During Friday prayers, a religious leader in the town of Mselata, 80km to
the east of Tripoli, called for the people to fight back.

Immediately after the prayers, more than 2,000 people, some of them armed
with rifles taken from the security forces, headed towards Tripol to
demand the fall of Gaddafi, Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri reported.

The group made it as far as the city of Tajoura, where it was stopped by a
group loyal to Gaddafi.

They were checked by foreign, French-speaking mercenaries and gunfire was
exchanged. There were an unknown number of casualties, Moshiri reported,
based on information from witnesses who had reached on the Libyan-Tunisian
border.

Foreign mercenaries

There have been frequent reports of foreign mercenaries working for
Gaddafi against the protesters, but their nationality remains uncertain.

The government of Chad has moved to counter allegations that Chadian
mercenaries were being recruited to go to Libya.

"International media inundates the public opinion with information
alleging some Chadian would be mercenaries currently acting in Libya,"
Moussa Mahamat Dago, the Chad foreign ministry’s general secretary, said
on Friday.

"We want to formally and categorically deny all those allegations that are
dangerous and could pose a material and physical danger to the many
Chadians living in Libya for years and always in a peaceful way."

People in eastern parts of the country, a region believed to be largely
free from Gaddafi's control, held protests in support for the
demonstrations in the capital.

"Friday prayer in Benghazi have seen thousands and thousands on the
streets. All the banners are for the benefit of the capital, [they are
saying] 'We're with you, Tripoli'," Al Jazeera’s Laurence Lee reported.

In the town of Derna, protesters held banners with the messages such as
"We are one Tribe called Libya, our only capital is Tripoli, we want
freedom of speech".

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Libya reported on Friday that army
commanders in the east who had renounced Gaddafi's leadership had told her
that military commanders in the country's west were beginning to turn
against him.

They warned, however, that the Khamis Brigade, an army special forces
brigade that is loyal to the Gaddafi family and is equipped with
sophisticated weaponry, is currently still fighting anti-government
forces.

The correspondent, who cannot be named for security reasons, said that
despite the gains, people are anxious about what Gaddafi might do next,
and the fact that his loyalists were still at large.

"People do say that they have broken the fear factor, that they have made
huge territorial gains,” she said. "[Yet] there's no real celebration or
euphoria that the job has been done."

On Friday morning, our correspondents reported quoting witnesses that the
town of Zuwarah had been abandoned by security forces and completely in
the hands of anti-Gaddafi protesters.

Checkpoints in the country's west on roads leading to the Tunisian border,
however, were still being controlled by Gaddafi loyalists.

In the east, similar checkpoints were manned by anti-Gaddafi forces, who
had set up a "humanitarian aid corridor" as well as a communications
corridor to the Egyptian border, our correspondent reported.

Thousands massed in Az Zawiyah's Martyr's Square after the attack, calling
on Gaddafi to leave office, and on Friday morning, explosions were heard
in the city.

Arms caches blown up

Witnesses say pro-Gaddafi forces were blowing up arms caches, in order to
prevent anti-government forces from acquiring those weapons.

Clashes were also reported in the city of Misurata, located 200km east of
Tripoli, where witnesses said a pro-Gaddafi army brigade attacked the
city's airport with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

They told Al Jazeera that pro-democracy protesters had managed to fight
off that attack. "Revolutionaries have driven out the security forces,"
they said, adding that "heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns" had
been used against them.

Mohamed Senussi, a resident of Misurata, said calm had returned to the
city after the "fierce battle" near the airport.

"The people's spirits here are high, they are celebrating and chanting
'God is Greatest'," he told the Reuters news agency by telephone.

Another witness warned, however, that protesters in Misurata felt
"isolated" as they were surrounded by nearby towns still in Gaddafi's
control.

Protesters and air force personnel who have renounced Gaddafi's leadership
also overwhelmed a nearby military base where Gaddafi loyalists were
taking refuge, according to a medical official at the base.

They disabled air force fighter jets at the base so that they could not be
used against protesters.

Oil terminal

Soldiers helped anti-Gaddafi protesters take the oil terminal in the town
of Berga, according to Reuters.

The oil refinery in Ras Lanuf has also halted its operations and most
staff has left, according to a source in the company.

Support for Gaddafi within the country's elite continues to decline. On
Friday, Abdel Rahman Al Abar, Libya's Chief Prosecutor, became one of the
latest top officials to resign in protest over the bloodshed.

"What happened and is happening are massacres and bloodshed never
witnessed by the Libyan people. The logic of power and violence is being
imposed instead of seeking democratic, free, and mutual dialogue," he
said.

His comments came as UN's highest human-rights body held a special session
on Friday to discuss what it's chief had earlier described as possible
"crimes against humanity" by the Gaddafi government.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, urged world leaders
to "step in vigorously" to end the violent crackdown.

The United Nations Security Council was to hold a meeting on the situation
in Libya later in the day, with sanctions the possible imposition of a
no-fly zone over the country under Chapter VII of the UN charter on the
table.

Libya: Protesters, security clash in capital

a scene from recent days' unrest in Benghazi, Libya.
The graffiti in Arabic reads 'Down with Gadhafi and the regime'

By MAGGIE MICHAEL and HAMZA HENDAWI, Associated Press Feb. 21, 2011

CAIRO – Libyan protesters celebrated in the streets of Benghazi on Monday,
claiming control of the country's second largest city after bloody
fighting, and anti-government unrest spread to the capital with clashes in
Tripoli's main square for the first time. Moammar Gadhafi's son vowed that
his father and security forces would fight "until the last bullet."

Even as Seif al-Islam Gadhafi spoke on state TV Sunday night, clashes were
raging in and around Tripoli's central Green Square, lasting until dawn
Monday, witnesses said. They reported snipers opening fire on crowds
trying to seize the square, and Gadhafi supporters speeding through in
vehicles, shooting and running over protesters. Before dawn, protesters
took over the offices of two of the multiple state-run satellite news
channels, witnesses said.

After daybreak Monday, smoke was rising from two sites in Tripoli where a
police station and a security forces bases are located, said Rehab, a
lawyer watching from the roof of her home.

The city on Monday was shut down and streets empty, with schools,
government offices and most shops closed except a few bakeries serving
residents hunkered down in their houses, she said, speaking on condition
she be identified only by her first name.

The protests and violence were the heaviest yet in the capital of 2
million people, a sign of how unrest was spreading after six days of
demonstrations in eastern cities demanding the end of the elder Gadhafi's
rule.

Gadhafi's regime has unleashed the bloodiest crackdown of any Arab country
against the wave of protests sweeping the region, which toppled the
leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. More than 200 have been killed in Libya,
according to medical officials, human rights groups and exiled dissidents.

The spiraling turmoil in Libya, an OPEC country that is a significant oil
supplier to Europe, was raising international alarm. Oil prices jumped
$1.67 to nearly $88 a barrel Monday amid investor concern over the
turmoil.

EU foreign ministers said on Monday they will prepare for the possible
evacuation of European citizens from Libya. European firms have taken the
lead in developing Libya's oil industry. About 500 Libyans attacked a
South Korean-run construction site near Tripoli on Monday, triggering a
clash that left five people injured, Seoul's Foreign Ministry said.

The Internet has been largely shut down, residents can no longer make
international calls from land lines and journalists cannot work freely,
but eyewitness reports trickling out of the country suggested that
protesters were fighting back more forcefully against the Middle East's
longest-serving leader. Most witnesses and residents spoke on condition of
anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

In Libya's second largest city, Benghazi, protesters were in control of
the streets Monday and swarmed over the main security headquarters,
looting weapons, after bloody clashes Sunday that killed at least 60
people, according to a doctor at the main hospital.

Cars honked their horns in celebration and protesters in the streets
chanted "Long live Libya." Protesters took down the Libyan flag from above
Benghazi's main courthouse and raised the flag of the country's old
monarchy, which was toppled in 1969 by the military coup that brought
Moammar Gadhafi to power, according to witnesses and video footage posted
on the Internet.

A Turkish Airlines flight trying to land in Benghazi on Monday was turned
away, told by ground control to circle over the airport then to return to
Istanbul.

There were fears of chaos as young men — including regime supporters —
seized weapons from captured security buildings. "The youths now have arms
and that's worrying," said Iman, a doctor at the main hospital who also
asked that her last name not be used. "We are appealing to the wise men of
every neighborhood to rein in the youths."

Youth volunteers were directing traffic and guarding homes and public
facilities, said Najla, a lawyer and university lecturer in Benghazi, who
spoke on condition she be identified only by her first name. She and other
residents said police had disappeared from the streets.

Benghazi has seen a cycle of bloody clashes over the past week, as
security forces kill protesters, followed by funerals that turn into new
protests, sparking new bloody shootings. After funerals Sunday, protesters
fanned out, burning government buildings and police stations and besieging
the large compound known as the Katiba, the city's main security
headquarters.

Security forces battled back, at times using heavy-caliber machine guns
and anti-aircraft guns, according to residents. One witness said she saw
bodies torn apart and that makeshift clinics had been set up in the
streets to treat the wounded because hospitals were overwhelmed. Ahmed
Hassan, a doctor at the main Al-Jalaa hospital, said funerals were
expected Monday for 20 of those killed the day before, but that families
of 40 others were still trying to identify their loved ones because their
bodies were too damaged.

In some cases, army units reportedly turned against security forces and
pro-Gadhafi militias to side with the protesters. Mohamed Abdul-Rahman, a
42-year-old Benghazi merchant, said he saw an army battalion chasing
militiamen from a security compound.

Protesters took over the Katiba, and weapons stores were looted, many
residents said. Inside the Katiba compound, protesters found the bodies of
13 uniformed security officers who had been handcuffed and shot in the
head, then set on fire, said Hassan, the doctor. He said protesters
believed the 13 had been executed by fellow security forces for refusing
to attack protesters.

Protest leaders and army units that sided with them were working to keep
order in the streets Monday, directing traffic and guarding homes and
official buildings, several residents said.

One fear was of regime supporters causing chaos. Amal Roqaqie, a lawyer at
Benghazi Court, said that at dawn, wheat storage buildings were set on
fire, though protesters were able to control the blaze. She blamed Gadhafi
supporters, saying "they want to starve the people and to intimidate
them."

On Sunday night, Gadhafi's son Seif el-Islam took to state TV, trying to
take a tough line in a rambling and sometimes confused speech of nearly 40
minutes.

"We are not Tunisia and Egypt," he said. "Moammar Gadhafi, our leader, is
leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are with him."

"The armed forces are with him. Tens of thousands are heading here to be
with him. We will fight until the last man, the last woman, the last
bullet," he said.

He warned the protesters that they risked igniting a civil war in which
Libya's oil wealth "will be burned." He also promised "historic" reforms
in Libya if protests stop.

Seif has often been put forward as the regime's face of reform. Several of
the elder Gadhafi's sons have powerful positions in the regime and in past
years have competed for influence. Seif's younger brother Mutassim is the
national security adviser, with a strong role in the military and security
forces, and another brother Khamis heads the army's 32nd Brigade, which
according to U.S. diplomats is the best trained and best equipped force in
the military.

Even as Seif spoke, major clashes had broken out for the first time in
Tripoli.

Sunday afternoon, protesters from various parts of the city began to
stream toward central Green Square, chanting "God is great," said one
28-year-old man who was among the marchers.

In the square, they found groups of Gadhafi supporters, but the larger
number of protesters appeared to be taking over the square and surrounding
streets, he and two other witnesses said. That was when the backlash
began, with snipers firing down from rooftops and militiamen attacking the
crowds, shooting and chasing people down side streets. they said.

"We saw civilian cars with Gadhafi pictures, they started to look for the
protesters, to either run over them or open fire with automatic weapons,"
said the 28-year-old, reached by telephone. "They were driving like mad
men searching for someone to kill. ... It was total chaos, shooting and
shouting."

The witnesses reported seeing casualties, but the number could not be
confirmed. One witness, named Fathi, said he saw at least two he believed
were dead and many more wounded. "I could still hear gunfire after 5 a.m.
this morning," he said.

After midnight, protesters took over the main Tripoli offices of two
state-run satellite stations, Al-Jamahiriya-1 and Al-Shebabiya, one
witness said.

On Monday, state TV sought to give an air of normalcy, reporting that
Moammar Gadhafi received telephone calls of support from the presidents of
Nicaragua and Mali. It showed footage of a crowd of Libyans said to be
from the town of Zeltein chanting their support for Gadhafi in a
conference hall. Gadhafi, in flowing black and brown robes, waved to the
crowd with both hands. It was not clear when the scene was taking place.

In other setbacks for Gadhafi's regime, a major tribe in Libya — the
Warfla — was reported to have turned against him and announced it was
joining the protests against him, said Switzerland-based Libyan exile
Fathi al-Warfali. Although it had long-standing animosity toward the
Libyan leader, it had been neutral for most of the past two decades.
Libya's representative to the Arab League said he resigned his post to
protest the government's decision to fire on defiant demonstrators in
Benghazi.

Khaled Abu Bakr, a resident of Sabratha, an ancient Roman city to the west
of Tripoli, said protesters besieged the local security headquarters,
driving out police and setting it on fire. Abu Bakr said residents are in
charge, have set up neighborhood committees to secure their city.

Libya: Snipers shoot mourners, killing 15

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Feb. 19, 2011

CAIRO – Moammar Gadhafi's forces fired on mourners leaving a funeral for
protesters Saturday in the eastern city of Benghazi, killing at least 15
people and wounding scores more as the regime tried to squelch calls for
an end to the ruler's 42-year grip on power.

Libyan protesters were back on the street for the fifth straight day, but
Gadhafi has taken a hard line toward the dissent that has ripped through
the Middle East and swept him up with it. Government forces also wiped out
a protest encampment and clamped down on Internet service throughout Libya

Snipers fired on thousands of people gathered in Benghazi, a focal point
of the unrest, to mourn 35 protesters who were shot on Friday, a hospital
official said.

A hospital official said 15 people were killed, including one man who was
apparently hit in the head with an anti-aircraft missile. The weapons
apparently were used to intimidate the population.

"Many of the dead and the injured are relatives of doctors here," he told
The Associated Press in a telephone interview. "They are crying and I keep
telling them to please stand up and help us."

The official said many people were shot in the head and chest. The
hospital was overwhelmed and people were streaming to the facility to
donate blood.

Like most Libyans who have talked to The Associated Press during the
revolt, the hospital official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisal.

Before Saturday's violence, Human Rights Watch had estimated at least 84
people have been killed.

Just after 2 a.m. local time in Libya, the U.S.-based Arbor Networks
security company detected a total cessation of online traffic in the North
African country. Protesters confirmed they could not get online.

Information is tightly controlled in Libya, where journalists cannot work
freely, and activists this week have posted videos on the Internet that
have been an important source of images of the revolt. Other information
about the protests has come from opposition activists in exile. Egyptian
officials briefly tried to cut Internet service during the uprising that
toppled Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11, but that move was unsuccessful.

Libya is more isolated, however, and the Internet is one of the few links
to the outside world. The Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights
Information released a report back in 2004 that said nearly 1 million
people among Libya's population of about 6 million had Internet access at
the time. That was just three years after Internet service had been
extended to the public.

About 5 a.m. Saturday, special forces attacked hundreds of protesters,
including lawyers and judges, camped out in front of the courthouse in
Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city.

"They fired tear gas on protesters in tents and cleared the areas after
many fled carrying the dead and the injured," one protester said over the
phone.

Doctors in Benghazi said Friday that 35 bodies had been brought to the
hospital following attacks by security forces backed by militias, on top
of more than a dozen killed the day before. Standing in front of Jalaa
Hospital morgue, a witness said that the bodies bore wounds from being
shot "directly at the head and the chests."

Residents of the city set up neighborhood patrols on Saturday, after
police left the streets.

"We don't see a single policeman in the streets, not even traffic police,"
a lawyer in Benghazi said. People regarded the disappearance of the police
as an ominous sign, fearing that pro-government forces would soon follow
up the encampment raid with house-to-house attacks.

Switzerland-based Libyan activist Fathi al-Warfali said that several other
activists had been detained including Abdel-Hafez Gougha, a well-known
organizer who was being held after security forces stormed his house in a
night raid.

Gadhafi is facing the biggest popular uprising of his autocratic reign,
with much of the action in the country's impoverished east.

The nation has huge oil reserves but poverty is a significant problem.
U.S. diplomats have said in newly leaked memos that Gadhafi's regime seems
to neglect the east intentionally, letting unemployment and poverty rise
to weaken opponents there.

The British Foreign Office on Saturday warned against all but essential
travel to five cities in eastern Libya where demonstrations have been
concentrated, including Benghazi.

A female protester in Tripoli, the capital city to the west, said it was
much harder to demonstrate there. Police were out in force and Gadhafi was
greeted rapturously when he drove through town in a motorcade on Thursday.
"People are under siege and those who dare to show up are arrested," she
said.

Earlier in the week, forces from the military's elite Khamis Brigade moved
into Benghazi, Beyida and several other cities, residents said. They were
accompanied by militias that seemed to include foreign mercenaries, they
added. Several witnesses reported French-speaking fighters, believed to be
Tunisians or sub-Saharan Africans, among militiamen wearing blue uniforms
and yellow helmets.

The Khamis Brigade is led by Gadhafi's youngest son Khamis Gadhafi, and
U.S. diplomats in leaked memos have called it "the most well-trained and
well-equipped force in the Libyan military." The witnesses' reports that
it had been deployed could not be independently confirmed.

Anti-government protesters killed in Libyan clash

By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press Feb. 17, 2011

CAIRO – Libyan protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi
defied a crackdown and took to the streets in four cities Thursday on what
activists have dubbed a "day of rage," amid reports at least 20
demonstrators have been killed in clashes with pro-government groups.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said Libyan internal security forces
also have arrested at least 14 people. Hundreds of pro-government
demonstrators also rallied in the capital, Tripoli, blocking traffic in
some areas, witnesses said.

An opposition website and an anti-Gadhafi activist said unrest broke out
during marches in four Libyan cities Thursday. Organizers were using
social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to call for nationwide
demonstrations.

"Today the Libyans broke the barrier or fear, it is a new dawn," said Faiz
Jibril, an opposition leader in exile.

Opposition website Libya Al-Youm said four protesters were slain by
snipers from the Internal Security Forces in the eastern city of Beyida,
which had protests Wednesday and Thursday. It's not clear when the
protesters were killed. The website also said there was a demonstration
Thursday in Benghazi, Libya's second-Largest city, and that security
forces had shot and killed six people with live ammunition.

Switzerland-based Libyan activist Fathi al-Warfali said 11 protesters were
killed in Beyida on Wednesday night, and scores were wounded. He said the
government dispatched army commandos to quell the uprising.

Libya Al-Youm said that protesters set out Thursday after the funeral for
those killed a day earlier toward the State Security building, chanting
"Free Libya, Gadhafi get out!"

Mohammed Ali Abdellah, deputy leader of the exiled National Front for the
Salvation of Libya, said that hospitals in Beyida were complaining of a
shortage in medical supplies, and that the government has refused to
provide them to treat an increasing number of protesters.

Click image to see photos of protests in Libya


AFP/Mahmud Turkia

Abdellah quoted hospital officials in the town as saying that about 70
people have been admitted since Wednesday night, about half of them
critically injured by gunshot wounds.

Gadhafi's government has moved quickly to try to stop Libyans from joining
the wave of uprisings in the Middle East that have ousted the leaders of
Egypt and Tunisia. It has proposed the doubling of government employees'
salaries and released 110 suspected Islamic militants who oppose him —
tactics similar to those adopted by other Arab regimes facing recent mass
protests.

An autocrat who has ruled for more than 40 years, Gadhafi also has been
meeting with tribal leaders to solicit their support. State television
reported Tuesday that Gadhafi spoke with representatives of Ben Ali tribe,
one of Libya's biggest clans and one that has branches in neighboring
Egypt.

The official news agency JANA said Thursday's pro-government rallies were
intended to express "eternal unity with the brother leader of the
revolution," as Gadhafi is known.

Witnesses in the capital said many government supporters were raising
Libyan flags from their cars and chanting slogans in favor of Gadhafi.
They said it was otherwise business as usual in the capital and stores
remained open.

But protests already have turned violent.

Al-Warfali, head of the Libyan Committee for Truth and Justice, said two
more people were killed in another city, Zentan, on Thursday while one
protester was killed in Rijban, a town about 75 miles (120 kilometers)
southwest of Tripoli, where power was shut down Wednesday night and
remained off Thursday.

He said protesters on Thursday in the coastal city of Darnah were chanting
"the people want the ouster of the regime" — a popular slogan from
protests in Tunisia and Egypt — when thugs and police attacked them from a
vegetable market.

A video provided by al-Warfali of the scene in Zentan showed marchers
chanting and holding a banner that read "Down with Gadhafi. Down with the
regime."

Another video showed protests by lawyers in Benghazi on Thursday demanding
political and economic reform while a third depicted a demonstration in
Shahat, a small town southwest of Benghazi.

The Libyan government maintains tight control over the media and the
reports couldn't be independently confirmed.

Libya's Muslim Brotherhood, an opposition group in that country as it has
been in Egypt, denounced the crackdown.

In a statement Wednesday night, it accused "the security forces and
members of the revolutionary committees of using live ammunition in
dispersing the protesters." The group demanded that "the Libyan regime
rein in its (security) apparatus."

Anti-government protests, clashes spread to Libya

By MAGGIE MICHAEL, Associated Press Feb. 16, 2011

CAIRO – Egypt-inspired unrest spread against Libya's longtime dictator
Moammar Gadhafi on Wednesday, with riot police clashing with protesters in
the second-largest city of Benghazi and marchers setting fire to security
headquarters and police stations in two other cities, witnesses said.

Gadhafi's government sought to allay further unrest by proposing the
doubling of government employees' salaries and releasing 110 suspected
Islamic militants who oppose him — tactics similar to those adopted by
other Arab regimes in the recent wave of protests.

Activists using Facebook and Twitter have called for nationwide
demonstrations on Thursday to demand the ouster of Gadhafi, the
establishment of a constitution and comprehensive political and economic
reforms. Gadhafi came to power in 1969 through a military coup and has
ruled the country without an elected parliament or constitution.

The Benghazi protest began Tuesday, triggered by the arrest of an activist
but quickly took on an anti-government tone, according to witnesses and
other activists. The protest was relatively small, but it signaled that
anti-government activists have been emboldened by uprisings elsewhere.

It started at the local security headquarters after troops raided the home
of rights advocate Fathi Tarbel and took him away, according to
Switzerland-based activist Fathi al-Warfali.

Tarbel was released after meeting with Libya's top security official
Abdullah al-Sanousi, but the protesters proceeded to march through the
coastal city to the main downtown plaza, al-Warfali said.

Protests renewed on Wednesday as the families of four other activists
still in custody, including author Idris al-Mesmari, marched on security
headquarters to demand their release, al-Warfali said, citing witnesses.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said a total of nine activists have been
arrested in Tripoli and Benghazi in an effort to prevent people from
joining the rallies called for Thursday. Those protests have been called
to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the killing of nine people
demonstrating in front of the Italian Consulate against a cartoon
depicting Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

"This is a pre-emptive attempt to prevent peaceful protests on Feb. 17,"
the group's Heba Morayef said.

The online campaign calling for Thursday's rallies named the planned
protest "the revolution of al-Mokhtar," referring to Omar al-Mokhtar, the
leader of the Libyan resistance against Italy's military occupation in the
first half of the 20th century. Al-Mokhtar was executed in 1931.

Independent confirmation of Wednesday's protests in Benghazi was not
possible because the government tightly controls the media, but video
clips posted on the Internet showed protesters carrying signs and
chanting: "No God but Allah. Moammar is the enemy of Allah," and "Down,
down to corruption and to the corrupt."

Police and armed government backers quickly clamped down, firing rubber
bullets and dousing protesters with water cannons.

Another video with the same date showed people running away from gunfire
while shots are heard. A young man in a white, bloodstained robe was then
seen being carried by protesters.

A Libyan security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he
wasn't authorized to release the information, said 14 people, including 10
policemen, were injured. The official accused protesters of being armed
with knives and stones. Witnesses said the protests were peaceful but came
under attack from pro-Gadhafi men.

In the southern city of Zentan, 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of
Tripoli, hundreds of people marched through the streets and set fire to
security headquarters and a police station, then set up tents in the heart
of the town while chanting, "The people want the ouster of the regime,"
witnesses told al-Warfali.

Resentment against Gadhafi runs high in Zentan because many of the
detained army officers who took part in a failed coup in 1993 hail from
the city of 100,000 people.

In Beyida, to the east of Benghazi, hundreds of protesters torched police
stations while chanting, "people want the ouster of the regime," according
to Rabie al-Messrati, a 25-year-old protester. Al-Messrati said he was
arrested five days ago after spreading the call for the Feb. 17 protest.
He said he was released Tuesday and took part in Wednesday's
demonstrations.

"All the people of Beyida are out in the streets," he said.

Another protester, Ahmed al-Husseini, said that he saw snipers on the roof
of the security headquarters opening fire on protesters, wounding at least
eight people.

"This is my first time to stand up against injustice and oppression," he
said. "For 42 years I have not been able to speak up."

The protests came as security forces in Beyida rounded up a number of
activists while searching for Sheik Ahmed al-Dayekh, an outspoken cleric
who criticized Gadhafi and corruption in Libya during a Friday sermon.

The outbreak of protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Iran has
roiled the Middle East and brought unprecedented pressure on leaders like
Gadhafi who have held virtually unchecked power for decades.

It also has posed new challenges for the United States, which has
strategic interests in each of the countries. President Barack Obama
conceded Tuesday he is concerned about the region's stability and prodded
governments to get out ahead of the change.

Libya's official news agency did not carry any reports of the
anti-government protests. It reported only that supporters of Gadhafi
demonstrated Wednesday in the capital, Tripoli, as well as Benghazi and
other cities.

Libyan TV showed video of 12 state-orchestrated rallies of government
employees, and students. The biggest was in Tripoli, where about 3,000
rallied in the streets, chanting: "Moammar is our leader. We don't want
anyone but him."

JANA, the official news agency, quoted a statement from the pro-Gadhafi
demonstrators as pledging to "defend the leader and the revolution." The
statement described the anti-government protesters as "cowards and
traitors."

Meanwhile, the government freed 110 Islamic militants who were members of
a group plotting to overthrow Gadhafi, leaving only 30 members of the
group in prison.

Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the leader's son, has orchestrated the release of
members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which is suspected of having
links to al-Qaida, in the past as part of a reconciliation plan.

The government also proposed increasing the salaries of state workers by
100 percent.

Gadhafi, long reviled in the West, has been trying to bring his country
out of isolation, announcing in 2003 that he was abandoning his program
for weapons of mass destruction, renouncing terrorism and compensating
victims of the 1986 La Belle disco bombing in Berlin and the 1988 bombing
of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Those decisions opened the door for warmer relations with the West and the
lifting of U.N. and U.S. sanctions, but Gadhafi continues to face
allegations of human rights violations in the North African nation.

The activist's arrest followed the collapse of talks between the
government and a committee representing families of hundreds of inmates
killed when security forces opened fire during 1996 riots at Abu Salim,
Libya's most notorious prison. The government has begun to pay
compensation to families, but the committee is demanding prosecution of
those responsible.

Al-Warfali, the Switzerland-based activist, said the ultimate goal was to
oust the Gadhafi regime.

"These are old calls by the Libyan opposition in exile, but Egypt and
Tunisia have given us new momentum. They brought down the barrier of
fear," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Salah Nasrawi contributed to this report.