Militias shoot protesters as Gaddafi stands defiant

MILITIAS loyal to Muammar Gaddafi shot and killed protesters as they streamed from mosques and marched across the Libyan capital yesterday to demand an end to the regime.

In rebellious cities in the east, tens of thousands held rallies in support of the first Tripoli protests in days.

Protesters described coming under a hail of bullets as they tried to march toward Tripoli’s central Green Square. One man among a crowd of thousands said gunmen on rooftops and in the streets opened fire with automatic weapons and even an anti-aircraft gun.

“In the first wave of fire, seven people within 10m of me were killed. Many people were shot in the head,” said the man, who was marching from Tripoli’s eastern Tajoura district. “It was really like we are dogs.”

Another protester said a man next to him was shot in the neck.

Militiamen opened fire on other marches in the nearby Souq al-Jomaa and Fashloum districts, where witnesses said four died. The reports could not be immediately confirmed.

In the evening, Gaddafi appeared before more than 1,000 supporters in Green Square and urged them to fight back against protesters and “defend the nation”.

“Retaliate against them, retaliate against them,” he said, speaking by microphone from the ramparts of the Red Castle, a Crusader fort overlooking the square. Wearing a fur cap and sunglasses, he shook his fist in the air, telling the crowd, “Dance, sing and prepare. Prepare to defend Libya, to defend the oil, dignity and independence.”

He warned, “At the suitable time we will open the arms depot so all Libyans and tribes become armed, so that Libya becomes red with fire.” The crowd waved pictures of the leader and green flags as he said, “I am in the middle of the people in the Green Square. ... This is the people that loves Muammar Gaddafi. If the people of Libya and the Arabs and Africans don’t love Muammar Gaddafi then Muammar Gaddafi does not deserve to live.”

Yesterday’s marches were the first significant protests by regime opponents in the capital since early this week, when militiamen launched a bloody crackdown on protesters that left dozens dead. In the morning and night before, text messages were sent around urging, “Let us make this Friday the Friday of liberation,” residents said on condition of anonymity, as they feared retaliation.

Tripoli, home to about a third of Libya’s population of six million, is the centre of the eroding territory that Gaddafi still controls. The uprising that began on February 15 has swept over nearly the entire eastern half of the country.

Even in the pocket of northwestern Libya around Tripoli, several cities have fallen to the rebellion. Militiamen and pro-Gaddafi troops were repelled on Thursday when they tried to retake opposition-held territory in Zawiya and Misrata, near the capital, in fighting that killed at least 30 people.

Support for Gaddafi continued to fray in a regime where he long commanded unquestioned loyalty.

Libya’s delegation to the UN in Geneva announced yesterday it was defecting to the opposition — and it was given a standing ovation at a gathering of the UN Human Rights Council.

Libya’s 11-member Arab League mission said it had resigned en masse in protest of Gaddafi's use of force against his opponents.

They join a string of Libyan ambassadors and diplomats who abandoned the regime, as have the justice and interior ministers at home, and one of Gaddafi’s cousins and closest aides, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, who sought refuge in Egypt.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch has put the death toll in Libya at nearly 300, according to a partial count. Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of about 1,000 deaths were “credible”.

The upheaval in the OPEC nation has taken most of Libya’s oil production of 1.6 million barrels a day off the market.

The opposition camp says it is in control of two of Libya’s major oil ports — Breqa and Ras Lanouf — on the Gulf of Sidra in central Libya. A resident of Ras Lanouf said yesterday that the security force guarding that port had joined the rebellion and were helping guard it, along with residents of the area.

Signalling continued defiance, Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, vowed his family will “live and die in Libya”.

Asked about alternatives in the face of growing unrest, Gaddafi said: “Plan A is to live and die in Libya, Plan B is to live and die in Libya, Plan C is to live and die in Libya.”

Gaddafi’s militiamen — a mixture of Libyans and foreign mercenaries — have clamped down hard in Tripoli the past week after the Libyan leader called on supporters to take back the streets from protesters and hunt them in their homes. A wave of arrests has taken place, with residents reporting security forces raiding homes and dragging away suspected protest organisers.

Starting yesterday morning in Tripoli, militiamen set up heavy security around many mosques in the city, trying to prevent any opposition gatherings. Armed men with green armbands to show their support of Gaddafi set up checkpoints on many streets, stopping cars and searching them. Tanks and checkpoints lined the road to Tripoli's airport.

When protests began in the afternoon, armed Gaddafi supporters were speeding through streets in vehicles, one witness said. He was among a crowd of protesters that spilled from a mosque but were met by militiamen at Algeria Square, adjacent to Green Square. Many scattered when the gunmen fired in the air, he said.

Tens of thousands rallied in support of the Tripoli protesters in the main square of Libya’s second-largest city, Benghazi, where the revolt began, about 940km east of Tripoli.

Tents — some with photographs of people who had been killed in fighting — were set up. Some people climbed on a few tanks parked nearby, belonging to army units in the city that allied with the rebellion.

“We will not stop this rally until Tripoli is the capital again,” said Omar Moussa, a demonstrator. “Libyans are all united ... Tripoli is our capital. Tripoli is in our hearts.”

Muslim cleric Sameh Jaber led the prayers in the square, telling worshippers that Libyans “have revolted against injustice”.

“God take revenge from Muammar Gaddafi because of what he did to the Libyan people,” the cleric, wearing traditional Libyan white uniform and a red cap, said in remarks carried by Al-Jazeera TV. “God accept our martyrs and make their mothers, fathers and families patient.”

Similar rallies took place in other cities in the east, as well as in opposition-controlled Misrata, Libya's third largest city, located in the northwest of the country, about 200km from Tripoli.

Several thousand gathered in Misrata’s main square, chanting their support for the Tripoli protesters, a doctor at the main hospital said. A day earlier, militiamen attacked Misrata residents guarding the airport. The doctor said 20 residents and one attacker were killed.

The worst bloodshed Thursday was in Zawiya, 50km west of Tripoli. An army unit loyal to Gaddafi fired automatic weapons on a mosque where residents — some armed with hunting rifles for protection — have been holding a sit-in to support protesters in the capital, a witness said. A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded. A Libyan news website, Qureyna, put the death toll at 23.

Zawiya, a key city close to an oil port and refineries, is the nearest population centre to Tripoli to fall into the opposition hands.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said yesterday that the bloc needs to consider sanctions such as travel restrictions and an asset freeze against Libya to achieve a halt to the violence there and move toward democracy.

The UN’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, meanwhile, said reports of mass killings of thousands in Libya should spur the international community to “step in vigorously” to end the crackdown against anti-government protesters.