The faltering government of the Libyan strongman Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi struck back at mounting protests against his 40-year rule, as helicopters and warplanes besieged parts of the capital Monday, according to witnesses and news reports from Tripoli.

By Monday afternoon, a witness saw armed militiamen firing on protesters who were clashing with riot police. As a group of protesters and the police faced off in a neighborhood near Green Square, in the center of the capital, ten or so Toyota pickup trucks carrying more than 20 men — many of them apparently from other African countries in mismatched fatigues — arrived at the scene.

Holding small automatic weapons, they started firing in the air, and then started firing at protesters, who scattered, the witness said. “It was an obscene amount of gunfire,” said the witness. “They were strafing these people. People were running in every direction.” The police stood by and watched, the witness said, as the militiamen, still shooting, chased after the protesters.

The escalation of the conflict came after Colonel Qaddafi’s security forces had earlier in the day retreated to a few buildings in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, fires burned unchecked, and senior government officials and diplomats announced defections. The country’s second-largest city remained under the control of rebels.

Security forces loyal to Mr. Qaddafi defended a handful of strategic locations, including the state television headquarters and the presidential palace, witnesses reported from Tripoli. Fires from the previous night’s rioting burned at many intersections, most stores were shuttered, and long lines were forming for a chance to buy bread or gas.

In a sign of growing cracks within the government, several senior officials — including the justice minister and members of the Libyan mission to the United Nations — broke with Mr. Qaddafi. And protesters in Benghazi, the second-largest city, where the revolt began and more than 200 were killed, issued a list of demands calling for a secular interim government led by the army in cooperation with a council of Libyan tribes.

Mr. Qaddafi’s security forces waved green flags as they rallied in Tripoli’s central Green Square on Monday under the protection of a handful of police, witnesses said. They constituted one of the few visible signs of government authority around the capital. The once ubiquitous posters of Colonel Qaddafi around the capital had been torn down or burned, witnesses said.

Colonel Qaddafi’s whereabouts were not known.

Tripoli descended into chaos in less than 24 hours as a six-day-old revolt suddenly spread from Benghazi across the country on Sunday. The revolt shaking Libya is the latest and most violent turn in a rebellion across the Arab world that seemed unthinkable just two months ago and that has already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia.

The Libyan government has tried to impose a blackout on the country. Foreign journalists cannot enter. Internet access has been almost totally severed, though some protesters appear to be using satellite connections or to be phoning information to news services outside the country.

In a rambling, disjointed address delivered about 1 a.m. on Monday, Mr. Qaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi played down the uprising sweeping the country, which witnesses and rights activists say has left more than 220 people dead and hundreds wounded from gunfire by security forces. He repeated several times that “Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt, ” neighbors to the east and west.

The United States condemned the Qaddafi government’s lethal use of force.

Witnesses in Tripoli interviewed by telephone on Monday said protesters had converged on the capital’s central Green Square and clashed with heavily armed riot police for several hours after Mr. Qaddafi’s speech, apparently enraged by it. Young men armed themselves with chains around their knuckles, steel pipes and machetes, as well as police batons, helmets and rifles commandeered from riot squads. Security forces moved in, shooting randomly.

By the morning, businesses and schools remained closed in the capital, the witnesses said. There were several government buildings on fire — including the Hall of the People, where the legislature meets — and reports of looting.

News agencies reported that several foreign oil and gas companies were moving on Monday to evacuate some workers from the country. The Portuguese government sent a plane to Libya to pick up its citizens and other residents of the European Union, while Turkey sent two ferries for its construction workers, The Associated Press reported.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/africa/22libya.html

Ghadaffi might eventually get what he's been running from. This provides a legal ground for the intervention of the United Nations Security Council, and his arse might be on his way to Hague to face trial for war crimes.

They never learn, do they? The sooner the despots of the Middle East are consigned to the garbage-can of history, the better. I have nothing but admiration for the courage shown by the ordinary citizens of these nations. The West should be giving every possible assistance regardless of the short-term logistical and strategic advantages they might enjoy by supporting some of these despots. It's time for the West to show some gumption and put its actions before its words. The United States ought to carry an airstrike against Libyan airforce.

If the Libyan government falls, it would change the entire Middle East situation. While Tunisia and Egypt can still dismissed as outliers, Qaddafi's fall would mean no middle east dictator would be stable. What next? The house of Saud!

PDP will soon force Nigerians to take similar measures

In Tunisia, Egyt and Libya, there is constant power, water suppy, and basic amenities. the people lead a confortable life.

But in Nigeria, its like living in hell for majority of the mases.

PDP should not push us further to the wall cause the bounce back may be damn to hot for them to handle.

Free and fair election - or it will be a fight to finish between the mases and the government

greateros:

PDP will soon force Nigerians to take similar measures

In Tunisia, Egyt and Libya, there is constant power, water suppy, and basic amenities. the people lead a confortable life.

But in Nigeria, its like living in hell for majority of the mases.

PDP should not push us further to the wall cause the bounce back may be damn to hot for them to handle.

Free and fair election - or it will be a fight to finish between the mases and the government

^^Bros it cant happen. What concerns PDP with this one.
A strong and more credible opposition is what is needed to bring down PDP. But its a pity I haven't seen any yet.

So PDP will definitely carry the day, cos it is the only party with national representation

Let's hope the feds come to our rescue again, their are Nigerians trapped in Libya.

Portugal and Austria both sent military planes to Tripoli yesterday to remove its citizens.

There is no way Ghadaffi wont end up in the Hague for the crimes he is committing against his own people.