Tripoli, March 29: Libyan revolutionary forces have vowed to take the capital Tripoli amid further protest rallies in the North African country’s second largest city of Benghazi in support of the revolutionaries.
The demonstrators marched toward the eastern city of Bengahzi’s Central Square as the revolutionary forces continued to advance westwards towards Tripoli, a Media correspondent reported on Tuesday.
Benghazi is known as the center of Libya’s revolution and home to the country’s National Transitional Council.
Shamsiddin Abdulmolah, a spokesman for the revolutionary government-in-waiting, however, said while France and now Qatar have declared they will recognize the Council in Benghazi as the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people, there was no intention to make Benghazi a de facto capital.
“We have only one capital, and that’s Tripoli. Benghazi is an interim capital because it’s where the intifada (uprising) started,” said Abdulmolah
“When we take Tripoli, it will become the capital of all of Libya, a unified Libya,” he said.
On Monday, the revolutionary forces were within 100 kilometers (60 miles) of Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace that is the dividing point between east and west Libya.
If they end up taking Sirte, it will be their biggest symbolic victory since the beginning of the revolution in mid-February. Beyond Sirte, to the west, lies the closely fought-over city of Misrata, then the capital Tripoli.
Although Gaddafi has sworn to battle the revolutionary forces to the last soldier in his army, his government has admitted that US, French and British airstrikes in recent days have pushed his forces back to the west.
Before the airstrikes, authorized under a UN resolution, Gaddafi’s tanks had rolled up to the gates of Benghazi.
Now, with the battle being taken towards Tripoli, the revolutionary leaders are formulating a new civilian structure for the country, saying they would begin exporting some of the 130,000 barrels of oil — Libya’s vital export resource — they are pumping daily to finance their aims.
——-Agencies