Tobruk, February 24: Vowing to track down and kill protesters “house by house,” Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi tightened his grip on capital Tripoli Wednesday, but large areas of the east remained out of his control as the uprising against his rule spread to more cities.
In Tripoli, the streets were relatively quiet Wednesday morning, a resident said, but armed mercenaries were around. A bloody crackdown drove protesters from the streets on Tuesday, and residents had described a state of terror.
“It looks like they have been given a green light to kill these people,” one witness said.
No certain figures for the toll of the unrest have emerged, but the foreign minister of Italy, which has long and close ties with Libya, said it was likely more than 1,000. Human Rights Watch said it had confirmed 62 deaths in two hospitals after a rampage on Monday night, when groups of armed militiamen and mercenaries from other African countries cruised the streets in pickup trucks, spraying crowds with machine-gun fire.
But as they clamped down on the capital, security forces did not appear to make any attempt to take back the growing number of towns in the east that had in effect declared their independence and set up informal opposition governments. Only around the town of Ajdabiya, south of the revolt’s center in Benghazi, were Gaddafi’s security forces and militia still clashing with protesters.
In his second TV appearance in two days, Gaddafi vowed on Tuesday to die as a martyr for his country. “I will fight on to the last drop of my blood,” he said.
-Agencies