Gaddafi struggles to hold on to power as opponents make gains Rania

Cairo, Feb 24 (PTI) Libya's embattled leader Muammar
Gaddafi on Thursday scrambled hard to stick to power as
anti-regime protesters gained control of several eastern
cities and the revolt moved closer to the capital Tripoli with
many army officers defecting to join the uprising.
The town of Zuara, 120 km west of the capital Tripoli,
has reportedly become the latest to fall to the opponents of
68-year-old Gaddafi. There were no police or soldiers left in
Zuara, BBC quoted witnesses crossing out of Libya as saying.
In the eastern city of Benghazi, residents had been
queuing to be issued guns looted from the army and police in
order to join what they called the battle for Tripoli, it
said.
However, the regime continued to unleash a crackdown in
the capital city where, according to witnesses, 'militias'
roamed around the streets to target protesters.
They said Tripoli was heavily guarded by pro-Gaddafi
forces, with tanks deployed in the suburbs.
Sending a stern warning to the Libyan leader, US
President Barack Obama indicated that strong unilateral and
multilateral measures in the form of sanctions were being
deliberated.
He described the suffering and bloodshed in Libya as
"outrageous" and "unacceptable" and asked the world to speak
in one voice against violence by the Gaddafi regime in his
first remarks to the press over the crisis.
As rebellion inched closer to Tripoli and defections of
military officers mounted, Gaddafi called on thousands of
"mercenaries and irregular security forces" to defend his
stronghold, in what residents were quoted as saying was a
desperate and dangerous turn in more than a week-old revolt.
After the fall of cities like Misurata to rebels
on Wednesday, there were reports that at least half of the
nation's coast to the east, up to the port of Ra's Lanuf,
appeared to have fallen to opposition forces.
Other towns that appeared to be no longer under Gaddafi's
control included Derna and Bayda, Al-Jazeera said.
Reports from the eastern coastal city of Tobruk, which is
140km from the Egyptian border, said that a major chunk of the
army in the east had switched sides in the revolt and people
were already celebrating freedom from Gaddafi's 41-year rule.
Major-General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the
armed forces in Tobruk, told Al-Jazeera that the troops led by
him had switched loyalties.
"We are on the side of the people," he said. "I was with
him (Gaddafi) in the past but the situation has changed - he's
a tyrant."
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Thousands of jubilant people converged on the streets of
Benghazi and Tobruk, setting off firecrackers, waving flags
as they broke into celebrations over what the protesters
described as the downfall of the Gaddafi regime.
However, in Tripoli residents were scared to venture out
due to fears that pro-government forces on the streets will
shoot them on sight.
There had been fresh reports of clashes between pro-and
anti-government protesters in the cities of Sabha in the
south; Sabratha, near Tripoli; and Az Zawiya, which is in the
west.
A Libyan army unit loyal to Gaddafi blasted the minaret
of a mosque being occupied by protesters in Az Zawiya,
witnesses were quoted as saying by Al-Jazeera. They said that
protesters had sustained heavy casualties in that attack, but
exact figures remained unclear.
State television reported that Gaddafi was due to make a
public address to residents of Az Zawiya.
Al-Jazeera said that protesters seemed to be in control
of much of the country's east and there was no presence of
security forces in the border areas.
The Libyan Internal Ministry put the death toll at 300 in
the last 10 days of violence, but Italian Foreign Minister
Franco Frattini said on Wednesday that the crackdown has
killed as many as 1,000 people.
A French doctor working in Benghazi, Gerard Buffet, told
the BBC the death toll there was at least 2,000.
It also quoted the state media as saying that Interior
Minister General Abdel Fatah Younes al-Abidi, who resigned
on Wednesday in protest against the violence on protesters,
had been kidnapped.
Gaddafi, the longstanding ruler of Libya, has vowed to
stick to defending his territory and die a martyr in what he
labelled as a stir by the Islamists.
The revolt that erupted in the eastern city of Benghazi
has spread to other major cities over the past week despite a
clampdown on media and communication and a violent crackdown
on protesters.
As the local situation worsened, thousands of foreigners
struggled to flee the country and foreign governments rushed
to evacuate their citizens.
Russia, France and UK have already begun evacuating
their citizens from the violence-wracked country while India
and China have also drawn extensive plans to bring back
thousands of their nationals.
The European Union, South Korea and the US were also
launching measures to evacuate their citizens.
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Obama said his administration was considering a "full
range of options" to respond to the Libyan crisis.
"This includes those actions we may take and those we
will coordinate with our allies and partners, or those that
we'll carry out through multilateral institutions,"
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is set to travel
to Geneva, where a number of foreign ministers will
convene for a session of the Human Rights Council on Monday
and the Libyan crisis is likely to be discussed.
UN chief Ban-Ki-moon too blasted Gaddafi for ignoring
his call to stop a violent crackdown against protesters and
warned that the situation could turn "very dangerous".
Referring to his 40-minute conversation with Gaddafi
earlier this week, Ban expressed disgust that the Libyan ruler
did not heed a strong appeal by him.
In Brussels, European Union ambassadors said the bloc
was ready to impose strong measures against Libya if
necessary, as Germany called for sanctions against the regime.
Peru became the first country to cut off diplomatic
ties with Libya over the violence.
The UN Development Programme dropped Gaddafi's daughter
Aisha al-Gaddafi as its goodwill ambassador in reaction to the
recent events in Libya.