FIGHTING BETWEEN Libyan government forces and rebels seeking to end the 42-year reign of Col Muammer Gadafy intensified yesterday as the Libyan leader warned against the imposition of a no-fly zone.
A defiant Col Gadafy said there would be further violence if the international community imposed a no-fly zone in Libya as the rebels have demanded. He argued that such a move would prove that the rebellion was the result of a foreign plot to seize control of Libya’s oil.
“If they take such a decision [to impose a no-fly zone], it will be useful for Libya, because the Libyan people will see the truth, that what they want is to take control of Libya and to steal their oil,” he told a Turkish TV channel. “Then the Libyan people will take up arms against them.”
Last night it appeared forces loyal to Col Gadafy had gained control of most of Zawiya, the only rebel-held city close to the capital, Tripoli. Libyan state TV announced yesterday morning that the city had been “liberated” from the opposition. “Security is at about 95 per cent. There are some rats that could be lying in some alleys and inside some flats. We are capturing them one group after the other,” a Libyan army captain said.
But there were reports that the rebels still retained the city’s main square, despite heavy shelling and considerable loss of life. “There are many dead people and they can’t even bury them,” one fighter told Reuters. “Zawiya is deserted. There’s nobody on the streets. No animals, not even birds in the sky.”
Meanwhile, the regime offered a 500,000 Libyan dinar (€288,000) reward for the capture of opposition leader former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil, who now heads an interim administration in eastern Libya, where the revolt began last month.
In Benghazi, Libya’s second city and home to the opposition headquarters, up to 1,000 people, mostly women, took to the streets amid reports that rebels had retaken the hamlet of Ben Jawwad further west. The women converged on the corniche waving pre-Gadafy national flags and and chanting “the blood of the martyrs won’t be spilled in vain”.