Col Gaddafi’s second son and heir apparent appeared on television late in the evening to say there would be “rivers of blood” and that Libya was on the brink of a civil war that would burn its oil wealth.
“Our spirits are high and the leader Muammar Gaddafi is leading the battle in Tripoli, and we are behind him as is the Libyan army,” he said. “We will keep fighting until the last man standing, even to the last woman standing…We will not leave Libya to the Italians or the Turks.”
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“This is an opposition movement, a separatist movement which threatens the unity of Libya,” he said. “We will take up arms, we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other.”
Opponents of the Gaddafi regime were in control of parts of Libya’s second city Benghazi having driven back security forces who fired on them with high-velocity sniper rifles, machine guns and even anti-aircraft artillery.
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Fighting has also broken out in the eastern cities of Al-Bayda, Ajdabiya, Darnah, and Tobruk, with eye-witnesses reporting Molotov cocktails, rifles and even antique Arabic sabres being used by demonstrators.
In Darnah, a group of Islamists seized an arms depot, and were holding civilians and soldiers there hostage.
Protestors in Ajdabiya claimed that it was a ‘Free City’ after the headquarters of Gaddafi’s Revolutionary Committee were burned down on Friday, along with 14 other buildings.
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The breakdown of the authorities’ control in Benghazi, where the armed forces were reported to have retreated to their command centre and to be firing indiscriminately on protesters surrounding it, was clear from videos being posted on the internet in greater numbers than before.
One showed the body of a man in blue police fatigues being carried away by demonstrators, who can be heard discussing whether he was one of the “African mercenaries” said to have been recruited by Col. Gaddafi to defend himself. The corpse had black rather than Arab features, though that does not necessarily mean he is not a Libyan citizen. …
More @ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8337546/Libya-protests-gather-pace-as-Gaddafis-son-vows-to-fight-to-the-end.html
Arab land is ready for freedom and opressive leaders are scared across islamic landscape. Their leaders reponse is the same in the face of protest, ‘we offer reforms, we wont stand for leadership, lets talk’ and the like. But why trying to talk only when the people protest? Whither arab democracy?