Cairo, February 24: Muammar Gaddafi appeared to be losing his grip on the eastern part of Libya as his opponents consolidated control over several cities despite a brutal crackdown, while global calls for sanctions grew shriller.
Reports from the eastern 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 68-year-old Gaddafi’s 41-year rule.
Pan-Arab channel 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.
It also said that in the western city of Misurata, army officers pledged “total support for the protesters” in a statement posted on the Internet.
But, BBC reported that security forces had opened fire on demonstrators in Misurata, 210 km from Tripoli, killing several.
BBC also quoted the state media as saying that the Interior Minister General Abdel Fatah Younes al-Abidi, who resigned yesterday in protest against the violence on protesters, had been kidnapped.
Announcing his defection, Major-General Suleiman Mahmoud, the commander of the armed forces in Tobruk said: “We are on the side of the people”.
“I was with him (Gaddafi) in the past but the situation has changed – he’s a tyrant,” he said.
However, the regime continued to unleash a crackdown in the capital city of Tripoli, where according to witnesses ‘militias’ roamed around the streets to target protesters.
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.
The Internal Ministry had put the death toll at 300 in the last 10 days of violence, but Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said yesterday that the crackdown has killed as many as 1,000 people.
The longstanding ruler of Libya has vowed to stick to defending his territory and to 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 scrambled 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 were also drawing 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.
Earlier, jubilant crowds converged on the streets of Benghazi and Tobruk, setting off firecrackers, waving flags and 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.
Obama said his administration was considering a “full range of options” to respond the to the 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 on Monday, where a number of foreign ministers will convene for a session of the Human Rights Council, 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.
Meanwhile, a series of defections continued to weaken the regime, with the Interior Minister along with a senior aide to Gaddafi’s son stepping down in protest.
Earlier, Justice Minister Mustapha Abdeljalil had also resigned in protest at the “excessive use of violence” besides Libya’s ambassadors to China, India and Bangladesh.
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 Gadhafi’s daughter Aisha al-Gaddafi as its goodwill ambassador in reaction to the recent events in Libya.
–PTI