TRIPOLI, Libya — The Libyan regime handed out guns to civilian supporters, set up checkpoints Saturday and sent armed patrols roving the capital to try to maintain control of Moammar Gadhafi’s stronghold and quash dissent as rebels consolidated control elsewhere in the North African nation.
In Washington, President Barack Obama said Gadhafi has lost his legitimacy to rule and said the Libyan leader needs to do what is right for his country by “leaving now.”
Foreign journalists Gadhafi had invited to Tripoli discovered blocks of the city in open revolt Saturday.
Witnesses described snipers and anti-aircraft guns firing at unarmed civilians, and security forces were removing the dead and wounded from streets and hospitals, apparently to hide the mounting toll.
When government-picked drivers escorted journalists on tours of the city Saturday morning, the extent of the unrest was evident. Workers were still hastily painting over graffiti calling Gadhafi a “bloodsucker” or demanding his ouster. Just off the tour route were long bread lines where residents said they were afraid to be seen talking to journalists.
And though government forces dominated the city center with heavily armed checkpoints and orange-suited cleanup crews, there were signs of defiance in other neighborhoods, where the streets were blocked by makeshift barricades of broken televisions, charred tree trunks and cinder blocks left over from protests and street fights the night before.
Scores of residents of Tripoli’s eastern Tajoura district turned out at a funeral Saturday for a 44-year-old man killed in clashes with pro-regime forces. Anwar Algadi was killed Friday, with the cause of death listed as “a live bullet to the head,” said his brother, Mohammed.
http://www.arkansas…">Protests rock Libya
On Friday, pro-Gadhafi militiamen, including snipers, fired on protesters trying to mount the first significant anti-government marches in days in Tripoli.
Outside the capital, rebels held a long swath of about half of Libya’s 1,000-mile Mediterranean coastline where most of the population lives, and even captured a brigadier general and a soldier Saturday as the Libyan army tried to retake an air base east of Tripoli. The state-run news agency also said the opposition held an air-defense commander and several other officers.
Obama, who made his first comments calling for Gadhafi to step down Saturday to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, had signed an executive order a day earlier that froze assets in the United States held by Gadhafi, his government and four of his children.
“When a leader’s only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now,” the White House said in a statement summarizing Obama’s telephone conversation with Merkel.
The U.S. also closed its embassy in Libya and suspended the limited defense trade between the countries.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced further sanctions Saturday, revoking visas for senior Libyan officials and their immediate family members. She said future applications from those blacklisted for travel to the United States would be rejected.
Gadhafi “should go without further bloodshed and violence,” Clinton said in a separate statement.
Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Gadhafi, his five adult children and top associates.
After a day of discussions, interrupted at times for consultations with home capitals, council members agreed to freeze the assets of Gadhafi, his four sons and one daughter and to ban travel by the whole family plus 10 close associates. The council also backed an arms embargo.
The day was consumed mainly with haggling in a private session over language to refer Libya’s violent crackdown on protesters to the International Criminal Court at The Hague, Netherlands, for investigation of possible crimes against humanity.
All 15 nations on the council ultimately approved referring the case to the permanent war-crimes tribunal.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had urged immediate action to protect civilians in Libya, where some estimates indicate more than 1,000 people have been killed in less than two weeks.
ROVING GUNMEN
In Tripoli, most residents stayed in their homes Saturday, terrified of bands of armed men at checkpoints and patrolling the city.
A 40-year-old businessman said he had seen Gadhafi supporters enter one of the regime’s Revolutionary Committee headquarters Saturday and leave with arms. He said the regime is offering a car and money to any supporter bringing three people with him to join the effort.
“Someone from the old revolutionary committees will go with them so they’ll be four,” a witness said when reached by telephone from Cairo. “ They’ll arm them to drive around the city and terrorize people.”
Other residents reported seeing trucks full of civilians with automatic rifles patrolling their neighborhoods. Many were young, even teenagers, and wore green armbands or cloths on their heads to show their affiliation to the regime, residents said.
Most shops in Tripoli were closed, and long lines formed at bakeries as people ventured out for supplies.
FORCE HEADS TO TRIPOLI
A top military official said Saturday that army leaders in eastern Libya who have turned against Gadhafi’s regime are preparing to dispatch a rebel force to Tripoli to support the uprising there.
Brig. Gen. Ahmed Gatrani said a small force of army defectors and rebels has already reached the outskirts of the capital.
“We are trying to organize people who will sacrifice their lives to free Tripoli from the dictator,” said Gatrani, who heads the military committee now in charge of the army in Benghazi, 600 miles east of the capital and the first major city to fall under opposition control. But, he cautioned, “Entering Tripoli is not easy. Anyone trying will be shot.”
In another sign of the deepening division, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former justice minister who recently switched sides, announced the formation of an “interim government” for the eastern regions under rebel control.
Gadhafi’s son Seif al-Islam Gadhafi warned in an interview with the al-Arabiya TV network Saturday that “the signs of civil war and foreign interference have started.”
There is, however, no indication that any rebel groups have reached Tripoli or participated in the fighting in areas where protesters wielding sticks and stones are confronting heavily armed Gadhafi loyalists. Video footage was broadcast on the Al-Jazeera satellite television network of what were purported to be fresh clashes Saturday in Zawiya, a town 20 miles west of Tripoli that had supposedly fallen to the opposition several days ago, showing residents holding sticks marching in the streets and then running from volleys of gunfire.
And a group of 22 rebels and soldiers who set out Friday from Benghazi encountered pro-regime forces near Gadhafi’s hometown, Sirte, and were executed, Gatrani said.
In Misrata, Libya’s third largest city, about 120 miles from the capital, a resident said the opposition was still in control of the city, which was calm Saturday, with many shops open and a local committee running civic affairs.
But the opposition held only parts of the sprawling Misrata Air Base after Friday’s attack by Gadhafi supporters, he added.
The troops used tanks against the rebels at the base and succeeded in retaking part of it in battles with residents and army units that had joined the uprising against Gadhafi, said a doctor and a resident wounded in the battle on the edge of Misrata. The doctor said 25 people were killed in fighting at the base since Thursday.
The resident said pro-Gadhafi troops captured several members of the opposition Friday and now the two sides are talking about a possible swap since the opposition also captured a soldier and a brigadier general. Libyan state TV confirmed that army Brig.Gen. Abu Bakr Ali was captured, although it said he was “kidnapped by terrorist gangs.” The state-run news agency JANA also said regime opponents held the commander of the air defense’s 2nd Division and several other officers.
State-run TV reported that the website of the JANA news agency was hacked.
The opposition also held complete control of Sabratha, a town west of Tripoli famed for nearby ancient Roman ruins, with no police or any security forces associated with the Gadhafi regime, said Khalid Ahmed, a resident.
“All of Libya is together,” Ahmed said. “We are not far from toppling the regime.”
MANY EVACUEES SAFE
Thousands of evacuees from Libya reached ports Saturday across the Mediterranean, with many more still trying to flee the North African nation by sea, air or land.
British military planes entered Libyan airspace to rescue oil workers and others from desert locations Saturday in secret mission meant to save those unable to flee escalating violence.
The C-130 Hercules planes, carrying Britons and other nations’ citizens, safely landed in Malta after picking up the civilians south of the eastern Libyan port of Benghazi, Defense Secretary Liam Fox said.
Other Britons trying to get their employees out expressed dismay that the rescue had not been better coordinated - so that oil workers near pickup points could have gotten there in time.
Fox said the frigate HMS Cumberland was returning to Benghazi from Malta to evacuate any remaining “entitled persons” from there.
Meanwhile, more than 2,800 Chinese workers landed in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete aboard a Greek ship Saturday, while another 2,200 Chinese arrived in Valletta, the capital of Malta, on a ship from Benghazi. As of Saturday, at least 16,000 Chinese, 15,000 Turks and 1,400 Italians had been evacuated. Most had been working in the construction and oil industries.
In addition, Ban told the U.N. Security Council that some 22,000 people have fled across the Libyan border to Tunisia and another 15,000 crossed the border into Egypt.
Col. Malek Mihoub, a Tunisian security forces official, said that “despite the good intentions of those present,” aid groups such as the Red Crescent, local authorities and the Tunisian army have become overwhelmed by the flow of people fleeing Libya.
Information for this article was contributed by Maggie Michael, Ben Hubbard, Hadeel al-Shalchi, Bassem Mroue, Darlene Superville, Frank Griffiths, Danica Kirka, Mark D. Solson, Jamey Keaten, Anita Snow, Kirsten Grieshaber and Suzan Fraser of The Associated Press; by David D. Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Sharon Otterman of The New York Times; and by Colum Lynch, Leila Fadel and Liz Sly of The Washington Post.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/27/2011