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TRIPOLI.
Government forces shot dead two protesters in the Libyan capital Tripoli yesterday, Al Ja-zeera television reported, as a popular uprising against Muammar Gaddafi closed in on his main power base.
Pro-Gaddafi forces opened fire after hundreds of people in the Janzour district in western Tripoli started a protest march after Friday prayers, residents told Xinhua, Reuters and AFP.
Protesters were also shouting anti-Gaddafi slogans in Fashloum in the city’s east and another resident said security forces had fired into the air there.
Al Jazeera said two people had been killed and several wounded in heavy shooting in several districts.
Outside the Jamal Abdelnasser mosque in the heart of the capital, an amateur video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television showed anti-regime demonstrators chanting “there is no other God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.”
Tripoli and the surrounding area, where Gaddafi’s forces had managed to stifle earlier protests, appear to be his last main stronghold as the revolt that has put the east under rebel control has also reportedly advanced through the west.
Zawiyah, an oil refining town on the main coastal highway 50km west of Tripoli, has on successive nights fought off attempts by government forces to take control, said witnesses who fled across the Tunisian border at Ras Jdir.
Army and police in the eastern city of Adjabiya told Al Jazeera television they had gone over to the opposition.
Other reports say the third city, Misrata, 200km east of Tripoli, is also under rebel control.
Such reports are hard to verify, with foreign correspondents unable to travel around western Libya, and telephone and broadband connections poor.
Three towns in the Western Mountains region about 150km southwest of the Libyan capital are no longer under central control, a witness who just returned from the area told Reuters.
“All the people in the Western Mountains have started to set up local committees to organise themselves. They are organising security and all their affairs autonomously,” the man said.
He said the towns were Yefren, Zenten and Jadu, though other parts of the region were still under Tripoli’s control. The area is a stronghold of the Berber ethnic minority.
People in Benghazi, under rebel control, said friends in Tripoli had told them protesters had demonstrated at mosques throughout Tripoli and planned to converge on Green Square.
“At around 2:10pm hundreds of protesters at the Slatnah Mosque in the Shargia district of Janzour were chanting anti-Gaddafi slogans, such as “With our souls, with our blood we protect Benghazi!” the Tripoli resident said.
The rebels who have seized Libya’s east and several centres in the west said they controlled almost all oil facilities east of the Ras Lanuf terminal.
A Reuters reporter saw that the other main terminal, Marsa el Brega, was in rebel control, with soldiers securing the port. Ras Lanuf is just on the western half of the Gulf of Sitre
Industry sources said oil shipments were near standstill.
Gaddafi vowed defiantly yesterday to triumph over his enemies, vigorously urging supporters in Tripoli’s Green Square to protect the Libyan nation and its petroleum interests.
Addressing cheering supporters from the old city ramparts looking over Green Square, Gaddafi, wearing a winter jacket and a hunter’s cap that covered his ears, said when necessary he would open Libya’s arsenals of guns to the tribes.
Blowing kisses to supporters and then shaking both fists in the air in a dramatic performance, he said:
“Get ready to fight for Libya! Get ready to fight for dignity! Get ready to fight for petroleum”.
In the first practical attempt to enrol the support of Libya’s 6 million citizens since the uprising began, state television announced the government was raising wages and food subsidies and ordering special allowances for all families.
Gaddafi’s four decades of rule have stifled any organised opposition or rival political structures, but in the east, ad hoc committees of lawyers, doctors, tribal elders and soldiers appeared to be filling the vacuum left by Gaddafi’s government with some succcess.
There was little sign of the radical Islamists whom Gaddafi has accused of fomenting the unrest.
State television said yesterday that each family would get 500 Libyan dinars (US$400) to help cover higher food costs, and wages for some public sector workers would rise by 150 percent.
But the website of the official JANA news agency (Jananews.ly) was inaccessible in Tripoli from Thursday evening, apparently brought down by cyber-activists.
Gaddafi’s grip on power could depend in part on the performance around Tripoli of an elite military unit led by one of his younger sons, US and European officials and secret diplomatic cables obtained by Wikileaks showed.
In Libya’s third city Misrata, 150km east of the capital, residents were expected to turn out in force for the funerals of 30 people killed as they helped evict regime loyalists, a resident said.
With some 500 loyal troops of the Hamza Brigade still holed up at a nearby air base, volunteers were helping to fortify the city with containers and sandbags, the resident told AFP by telephone.
In Benghazi, the initial euphoria of the eastern city’s liberation was giving way to fear that its weak defences could be vulnerable to a counter-attack.
At the barracks of the Al-Saiqa (Thunderbolt) special forces unit, an officer who gave his name as Colonel Said said: “For now, we are readying ourselves here. We are expecting an attack on Benghazi at any moment.”
In the city’s courthouse square where the demonstrations started, the faithful gathered for their first Friday prayers free of Gaddafi’s rule.
Delivering his sermon alongside the coffins of three men killed in the violent uprising, prayer leader imam Salem Jaber vowed: “We will not abandon Tripoli,” to chants of Allahu akhbar (God is greatest) from the congregation.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday condemned the use of force against civilians in Libya and warned that Libyan authorities would face prosecution under international law if they did not stop the violence.
“We strongly call on the current Libyan authorities . . . to show restraint, and not allow a worsening of the situation and the killing of civilians,” he said in a statement on the Kremlin’s website.
“If they do not, such actions will qualify as crimes carrying all the consequences of international law.”
The UN Security Council, of which Russia is a member, planned to meet yesterday to receive a French-British draft proposal for sanctions against Libyan leaders over the deadly attacks on demonstrators there, council envoys said.
The government faced fresh defections, including Muammar Gaddafi’s cousin and one of his closest aides, Ahmed Gaddafi al-Dam.
He said he resigned from his posts in Libya, the pan-Arab Al-Arabiya TV said, citing an e-mail sent from al-Dam’s office yesterday.
Belonging to Gaddafi’s inner circle, Al-Dam is one of the high-ranking Libyan officials and has served as a liaison with Egypt. He arrived in the Egyptian capital Cairo several days ago.
Meanwhile, Libya’s attorney general, Abdel-Rahman Al-Abbar, also announced his resignation in a video posted on the video-sharing site, Youtube.
The Libyan government has seen defection of its security forces and resignation of diplomats since the protests broke out.
Libya’s ambassadors to France and to the UN cultural organisation Unesco also resigned, the latest in a string of foreign envoys to announce they were “joining the revolution.”
Foreign nationals are still leaving in droves.
Egyptians and Tunisians are the largest groups and already more than 30 000 have fled across the borders. Among the rest Chinese and Turks are the largest groups.
Some 12 000 Chinese nationals have been evacuated from riot-torn Libya in the ongoing large-scale evacuation operations by yesterday morning, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed.
“The evacuees were either flown back to China or transferred temporarily to politically stable countries neighbouring Libya,” said the Chinese ministry in a statement.
More than 4 300 Chinese citizens had been evacuated on two large passenger liners, rented by the Chinese government, which had arrived at the Greek Island of Crete from the Libyan port of Benghazi on Thursday night.
Another 4 900 Chinese nationals have also completed necessary procedures for exiting Libya and are awaiting departure for Crete by ship.
“These evacuees have successfully got aboard ships at the port of Benghazi and are waiting (for the ships) to set sail,” said the statement.
The statement also mentioned that about 3 000 other Chinese nationals were arranged to temporarily evacuate from Libya to Tunisia and Egypt by land and would leave for home after finishing customs procedures from border checkpoints in the latter two countries.
Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals had been working or living in Libya when the unrest took hold there last week, most of whom are employees of Chinese companies with businesses in the country.
European Union nations agreed to slap an arms embargo, assets freezes and travel bans on Libya, an EU diplomat said.
The sanctions against the Libyan leader’s regime, which will also include an embargo on providing Tripoli with law enforcement equipment, will not be enforced for several days.
Yesterday’s accord between the 27 EU nations still needs to be drafted legally, said the diplomat, who asked not to be identified. – Xinhua-Reuters-AFP.