Protesters control 90 per cent of Libya

Having lost control of the country, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's militiamen are desperately trying to hang on to Sirte, Gaddafi's hometown.

Early yesterday, security forces loyal to Sa'edi, Gaddafi's son, encircled Sirte, blocking the coastal highway and another highway linking Libya's eastern and western regions.

In pictures: Unrest in Libya

Clockwise from top left: Libyan protesters in Tobruk on Wednesday. Libyan residents in Japan and their supporters chant anti-Gaddafi slogans during a rally in front of the Libyan embassy in Tokyo on Wednesday and People waiting to be evacuated from Libya gather outside Tripoli airport on Tuesday. Many airlines have cancelled flights to the Libyan capital after violent protests against Gaddafi.
Image Credit: AP/Reuters

"Tanks and manned armoured vehicles have cut the coastal and the inside road linking east with the west. Sirte is the last stronghold of the man since his tribe lives in the city," Fateh Al Talhouni, member of the revolutionary committee in Misurata told Gulf News.

So far, protesters have claimed control of 90 per cent of Libya, including most of the capital Tripoli and major cities such as Benghazi, Baida, Tobruk, Misurata, Zawiya and Zantan.

More gunfire was heard near Gaddafi's residence in Tripoli yesterday, but in many parts of the city of two million, people were venturing out to stores, some residents said.

Guards loyal to Gaddafi have fled from checkposts on the Egyptian border and tribal elders have formed local committees to take their place. ‘Welcome to the new Libya', graffiti spray-painted at the crossing proclaimed.

Fawzy Ignashy, a former soldier now in civilian clothes at the border, said that early during the protests, some commanders ordered troops to fire on protesters, but tribal leaders stepped in and ordered them to stop.

Meanwhile, citing an unidentified officer in the air force control room, website Quryna reported that two Libyan air force pilots ejected from their Russian-made Sukhoi fighter jet and let it crash rather than carry out orders to bomb Benghazi.

One of the pilots — identified by the report as Ali Omar Gaddafi — belongs to Gaddafi's tribe, the Gadhadhfa, Farag Al Maghrabi, a local resident who saw the pilots and the wreckage of the jet, said. The jet crashed in a deserted area outside the key oil port of Breqa.

International outrage has mounted after Gaddafi on Tuesday called on his supporters to take to the streets and fight protesters in a fiery, but rambling address on state TV.

Security Council reacts

The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday condemned the crackdown on protesters and demanded that violence against civilians should end immediately.

A press statement agreed by all 15 members of the UN's most powerful body expressed "grave concern" at the situation in Libya, "deplored the repression against peaceful demonstrators, and expressed deep regret at the deaths of hundreds of civilians".

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed in the violence in Libya were "credible" as governments scrambled to send planes and ships to evacuate their citizens from Libya.

In another sign Gaddafi's regime is disintegrating, his powerful interior minister Abdul Fattah Younus Al Abidi reportedly resigned on Monday after hearing that at least 300 civilians were killed in Benghazi.

He accused Gaddafi of planning to attack civilians on a wider scale.

There seems to be little sympathy in the region for Gaddafi and his family with Lebanon refusing earlier this week to grant landing rights for a private plane transporting the Lebanese wife of one of the Libyan leader's sons, a security official told AFP yesterday.

Meanwhile, Swedish tabloid Expressen has quoted Libya's former justice minister claiming that Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people in 1988.

Expressen yesterday quoted Mustafa Abdul Jalil as telling its correspondent in Libya that "I have proof that Gaddafi gave the order about Lockerbie." He, however, did not produce any proof.

Source: Gulf News