ZAWIYA, Libya — With residents shouting “Free, free Libya,” anti-government rebels who control this battle scarred city nearest to the capital deployed tanks and anti-aircraft weapons Sunday to brace for an attack by troops loyal to Moammar Gadhafi. The Obama administration offered “any type of assistance” to Libyans seeking to oust the longtime leader.
Politicians in the opposition stronghold of Benghazi set up their first leadership council to manage day-today affairs, taking a step toward forming what could be an alternative to Gadhafi’s regime.
In the capital Tripoli, where Gadhafi is still firmly in control, state banks began handing out the equivalent of $400 per family in a bid to shore up public loyalty.
“The Libyan people are fully behind me,” Gadhafi defiantly told Serbian TV, even as about half of the country was turning against him and world leaders moved to isolate him. “A small group [of rebels] is surrounded ... and it will be dealt with.”
Gadhafi has launched by far the bloodiest crackdown in a wave of anti-government uprisings sweeping the Arab world, the most serious challenge to his four decades in power. The United States, Britain and the U.N. Security Council all slapped sanctions on Libya this weekend.
A day after President Barack Obama branded Gadhafi an illegitimate ruler who must leave power immediately, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton kept up pressure for him to step down and “call off the mercenaries” and other troops who remain loyal to him.
“We are just at the beginning of what will follow Gadhafi. ... But we’ve been reaching out to many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the east and as the revolution moves westward there as well,” Clinton said. “I think it’s way too soon to tell how this is going to play out, but we’re going to be ready and prepared to offer any kind of assistance that anyone wishes to have from the United States.”
Two U.S. senators said Washington should recognize and arm a provisional government in rebel-held areas of eastern Libya and impose a no fly zone over the area - enforced by U.S. warplanes - to stop attacks by the regime.
Gadhafi’s son, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, in an interview with U.S. television, insisted that his father won’t relinquish power and that Libya had not used force or airstrikes against its own people.
There were no reports of major violence or clashes on Sunday, although gunfire was heard after nightfall in Tripoli.
‘THE DRACULA OF LIBYA’
The regime, eager to reinforce its view that Libya is calm and under its control, took visiting journalists to Zawiya, 30 miles west of the capital of Tripoli on Sunday. The tour, however, confirmed that anti-government rebels control the center of the city of 200,000 people.
Rebels had reinforced its boundaries with informal barricades, and military units that had joined the insurgents stood guard with rifles, six tanks and anti-aircraft guns mounted on the backs of trucks.
“We are really suffering for 42 years, and people are asking here for the same things as other people of the world - they want the real democracy,” said Ahmed El-Hadi Remeh, an engineer standing in the square. He and other residents told how they had used stones to repel the government’s forces.
“To us, Gadhafi is the ‘Dracula’ of Libya,” said Wael al-Oraibi, an army officer in Zawiya who decided to join the rebels in large part after Gadhafi used mercenaries from sub-Saharan Africa against residents of the city.
On Zawiya’s outskirts were pro-Gadhafi forces, also backed by tanks and anti-aircraft guns.
About 20 miles west of Zawiya, some 3,000 pro-Gadhafi demonstrators gathered on the coastal highway, chanting slogans in support of the Libyan leader.
Before Zawiya fell to rebel forces, Gadhafi had scolded its residents on Thursday, saying they were in league with terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“Shame on you, people of Zawiya. Control your children,” he said.
LEADING WITHOUT GADHAFI
In Libya’s second-largest city of Benghazi, politicians said Sunday that they are setting up a council to run day to-day affairs in the eastern half of the country under their control. It was seen as the first attempt to create a leadership body that could eventually form an alternative to the Gadhafi government.
Former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who defected from the Gadhafi regime, said Saturday he was setting up a provisional government.
But a prominent human rights lawyer, Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, held a news conference to shoot down the claim, saying instead that politicians in the east were establishing the transitional council only to manage daily life in the rebelcontrolled areas until Gadhafi falls.
Moammar Gadhafi blasted sanctions against his country and vowed to stay in power,telling Serbia’s private Pink TV in a telephone interview that “the Libyan people are still behind me.”
“Currently in Libya there are no incidents, now everything is quiet,” Gadhafi said.
Seif al-Islam Gadhafi again denied in another TV interview that the Libyan regime used force or airstrikes against its own people.
“Show me a single attack. Show me a single bomb,” he told ABC’s This Week. “The Libyan air force destroyed just the ammunition sites. That’s it.”
Human-rights groups and European officials have put the death toll since unrest began in Libya nearly two weeks ago at hundreds - perhaps thousands - although it has been virtually impossible to verify the numbers.
The British-educated Seif al-Islam Gadhafi is the most visible of Gadhafi’s children and has been acting as a spokesman for the regime.
“The whole south is calm. The west is calm. The middle is calm. Even part of the east,” he said.
Asked about Obama’s call for his father to step down, he said: “It’s not an American business, that’s No. 1. Second, do they think this is a solution? Of course not.”
He also said the U.N. economic sanctions were worthless because “we don’t have money outside.”
“We are a very modestfamily and everybody knows that. And we are laughing when they say you have money in Europe or Switzerland or something,” he said. “Come on, it’s a joke.”
FROZEN ASSETS
Libya’s Foreign Ministry said it regretted the U.N. Security Council resolution, saying it was based on “untrue media reports.”
The council voted 15-0 late Saturday to impose an arms embargo and urged U.N. member countries to freeze the assets of Moammar Gadhafi, four of his sons and a daughter. The council also backed a travel ban on the Gadhafi family and close associates.
Britain on Sunday froze the U.K.-based assets of Gadhafi, his family and representatives.
Obama said Friday that the U.S. was freezing the assets of the Gadhafi regime, and Switzerland has imposed similar measures.
Council members on Saturday additionally agreed to refer the Gadhafi regime’s deadly crackdown on people protesting his rule to a permanent war-crimes tribunal, the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for an investigation of possible crimes against humanity. The court’s chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, was instructed to report back to the council in two months on his investigation.
Gadhafi loyalists remain in control of Tripoli, where most stores were closed and long lines formed outside the few banks open for business.
Residents thronged to the banks after state TV promised each family about $400, plus the equivalent of about $100 credit for phone service. State TV said families also will be entitled to about $49,000 in interest-free loans to buy apartments.
A doctor in Libya’s third largest city of Misrata, about 125 miles east of Tripoli, said residents retrieved two more bodies of those killed in fighting with pro-Gadhafi forces near the city’s air base Friday. That raised the death toll from fighting to 27. About 30 people who took part in the battle remain unaccounted for, said the doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals.
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was expected in Washington today to discuss with Obama other possible measures that could be taken against the Libyan government.
M
CCAIN, LIEBERMAN
U.S. Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman said on CNN’s State of the Union that the U.S. and its allies should enforce a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent the military from again firing on civilian protesters from the air. Lieberman said Washington should arm the provisional government in rebel-held areas of eastern Libya “to fight on behalf of the people of Libya against a really cruel dictator.”
The senators said they support sending arms and humanitarian aid to the anti-Gadhafi government and recognizing that government, but said U.S. troops aren’t needed to intervene now.
Gadhafi will be overthrown, McCain said. “The question is how many people are going to be massacred between now and the time he leaves.”
The U.S. policy should be to “shorten” that time period, he said.
The White House had no immediate comment.
OIL WORKERS EVACUATED
British and German military planes landed in Libya’s desert, rescuing hundreds of oil workers and civilians stranded at remote sites over the weekend, while thousands of other foreigners were still stuck in Tripoli by bad weather and red tape.
Three British Royal Air Force planes plucked 150 stranded civilians from multiple locations in Libya before flying them to Malta on Sunday, the British Defense Ministry said in a statement.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Sunday that two German military planes evacuated 22 Germans and 112 others and flew them to the Greek island of Crete.
He said around 100 other German citizens are still in Libya and the government was trying to get them out as quickly as possible.
Thousands of Egyptian and Chinese expatriates, meanwhile, continued to stream out of Libya on its western border with Tunisia into camps near the frontier.
Information for this article was contributed by Paul Schemm, Bradley Klapper, Anita Snow, Maria Danilova, Ben Hubbard, Bassem Mroue, Kirsten Grieshaber and Sylvia Hui of The Associated Press, and by David D. Kirkpatrick and Sharon Otterman of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/28/2011