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The New York Times
BENGHAZI, Libya — With new fighting reported for a major oil center,Libya’s Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi denied on Wednesday that an uprising against him had started with demonstrations against his four decades in power and renewed accusations that Islamist forces outside Libya were responsible.
In a defiant speech lasting more than three hours, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Wednesday renewed accusations that Islamists were responsible for the unrest in Libya.
In a rambling and defiant speech lasting more than three hours, he challenged the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission to confirm his version of events, the opposite of what much of the world believes about the latest outbreak of discontent that has toppled the leaders of neighboring Tunisia and Egypt and threatened others in Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere.
“There were no demonstrations” in the eastern towns where the uprising started last month, Colonel Qaddafi told an indoor rally of loyalists to mark the 34th anniversary of the inception of what he called “people’s power” — part of his idiosyncratic prescription for government.“People came from outside Libya.Al Qaeda and the whole world knows that Al Qaeda does not take part in demonstrations.”
He called the rebels holding some cities “terrorists” and said loyalist forces would not surrender. “We will fight until the last man, the last woman for Libya, from north, south, east and west,”he said.
He also attacked foreign journalists, who have been invited to Tripoli.“Libya doesn’t like foreign correspondents,”he said.“They shouldn’t even know about the weather forecasts in Libya, because we are suspicious,”he said,according to a translation from Arabic to English carried live on Libyan state television.
Colonel Qaddafi was speaking in Tripoli as news reports said his forces had carried out bombing raids and were poised to attack areas held by his opponents.
Witnesses in the town of Brega, an oil-exporting terminal on the Libyan coast around 500 miles east of Colonel Qaddafi’s stronghold in the capital, Tripoli, said that mercenaries traveling by car attacked at dawn on Wednesday, backed by air strikes. They took over the airport and a university in the town, the witnesses said, where they took some people hostage and used them as human shields. Four were confirmed dead in the fighting, the witnesses said, citing firsthand reports from the hospital there.
Residents of the town of Ajdabiyah, around 50 miles from Brega, where rebels have taken control of a large ammunition dump, reported an air strike in the area, though not in the town. Throughout the day, a ragtag collection of rebel fighters armed with assault rifles and the occasional anti-aircraft gun mounted in a pickup truck passed through a checkpoint on their way to Brega to join the fighting there. There was no clear command and control of the forces.
The town lies on the western approaches to Benghazi, the rebel bastion, where dozens of semi trained young volunteers similarly stormed out of a military base on Wednesday, clambered onto a truck and said they were heading — unarmed — to the front line. Other rebel fighters said they were hoping to load tanks on to transport vehicles to join the battle to the south of Benghazi.
At the Tripoli rally, Libyan state television showed Colonel Qaddafi exchanging clenched fist salutes with his supporters.
“It is the people who rule,” he said, repeating his assertion, disputed by many outsiders, that he wields no formal political power. “There is nothing else but people’s power,” he said. “There is no room for a king or guardian or master to replace people’s power.”
After introducing the system in 1977, Colonel Qaddafi said, “I went back to my tent” — a reference to a favored form of accommodation supposed to reflect his Bedouin roots. Scores of people attending the event, however, chanted an apparently choreographed slogan calling him their leader. A woman who was not identified by name stepped up to a microphone and shouted, “You are a sword that will not bend.”
Colonel Qaddafi’s defiance seemed to be borne out by a former senior aide, Nouri al-Mismari, his onetime chief of protocol, who said on Wednesday that the Libyan leader was likely to “fight to the end” rather than step down or commit suicide. “Power is very important, and he wants to be in power,” Mr. Mismari told reporters at a press conference in Paris. “He will fight until the end. He will not believe in exile. He will not step down.”
BENGHAZI, Libya — With new fighting reported for a major oil center,Libya’s Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi denied on Wednesday that an uprising against him had started with demonstrations against his four decades in power and renewed accusations that Islamist forces outside Libya were responsible.
In a defiant speech lasting more than three hours, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Wednesday renewed accusations that Islamists were responsible for the unrest in Libya.
In a rambling and defiant speech lasting more than three hours, he challenged the United Nations to send a fact-finding mission to confirm his version of events, the opposite of what much of the world believes about the latest outbreak of discontent that has toppled the leaders of neighboring Tunisia and Egypt and threatened others in Yemen, Bahrain and elsewhere.
“There were no demonstrations” in the eastern towns where the uprising started last month, Colonel Qaddafi told an indoor rally of loyalists to mark the 34th anniversary of the inception of what he called “people’s power” — part of his idiosyncratic prescription for government.“People came from outside Libya.Al Qaeda and the whole world knows that Al Qaeda does not take part in demonstrations.”
He called the rebels holding some cities “terrorists” and said loyalist forces would not surrender. “We will fight until the last man, the last woman for Libya, from north, south, east and west,”he said.
He also attacked foreign journalists, who have been invited to Tripoli.“Libya doesn’t like foreign correspondents,”he said.“They shouldn’t even know about the weather forecasts in Libya, because we are suspicious,”he said,according to a translation from Arabic to English carried live on Libyan state television.
Colonel Qaddafi was speaking in Tripoli as news reports said his forces had carried out bombing raids and were poised to attack areas held by his opponents.
Witnesses in the town of Brega, an oil-exporting terminal on the Libyan coast around 500 miles east of Colonel Qaddafi’s stronghold in the capital, Tripoli, said that mercenaries traveling by car attacked at dawn on Wednesday, backed by air strikes. They took over the airport and a university in the town, the witnesses said, where they took some people hostage and used them as human shields. Four were confirmed dead in the fighting, the witnesses said, citing firsthand reports from the hospital there.
Residents of the town of Ajdabiyah, around 50 miles from Brega, where rebels have taken control of a large ammunition dump, reported an air strike in the area, though not in the town. Throughout the day, a ragtag collection of rebel fighters armed with assault rifles and the occasional anti-aircraft gun mounted in a pickup truck passed through a checkpoint on their way to Brega to join the fighting there. There was no clear command and control of the forces.
The town lies on the western approaches to Benghazi, the rebel bastion, where dozens of semi trained young volunteers similarly stormed out of a military base on Wednesday, clambered onto a truck and said they were heading — unarmed — to the front line. Other rebel fighters said they were hoping to load tanks on to transport vehicles to join the battle to the south of Benghazi.
At the Tripoli rally, Libyan state television showed Colonel Qaddafi exchanging clenched fist salutes with his supporters.
“It is the people who rule,” he said, repeating his assertion, disputed by many outsiders, that he wields no formal political power. “There is nothing else but people’s power,” he said. “There is no room for a king or guardian or master to replace people’s power.”
After introducing the system in 1977, Colonel Qaddafi said, “I went back to my tent” — a reference to a favored form of accommodation supposed to reflect his Bedouin roots. Scores of people attending the event, however, chanted an apparently choreographed slogan calling him their leader. A woman who was not identified by name stepped up to a microphone and shouted, “You are a sword that will not bend.”
Colonel Qaddafi’s defiance seemed to be borne out by a former senior aide, Nouri al-Mismari, his onetime chief of protocol, who said on Wednesday that the Libyan leader was likely to “fight to the end” rather than step down or commit suicide. “Power is very important, and he wants to be in power,” Mr. Mismari told reporters at a press conference in Paris. “He will fight until the end. He will not believe in exile. He will not step down.”
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