Soldiers sought to put down unrest in Libya's second city today and opposition forces said they were fighting troops for control of a nearby town after crackdowns which Human Rights Watch said killed 24 people.
Protests inspired by the revolts that brought down long-serving rulers of neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia have led to violence unprecedented in Muammar Gadafy's 41 years as leader of the oil exporting country.
The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said that according to its sources inside Libya, security forces had killed at least 24 people over the past two days. Exile groups have given much higher tolls which could not be confirmed.
Opponents of Col Gadafy had designated yesterday as a day of rage to try to emulate uprisings sweeping through North Africa and the Middle East. Unrest continued well into the night.
The demonstrations have been focused in the country's east, including its second largest city, Benghazi, where support for Col Gadafy has been historically weaker than in the rest of the country. The area is largely cut-off from international media.
"Last night was very hard, there were a lot of people in the street, thousands of people. I saw soldiers in the street," a resident who lives on Benghazi's main thoroughfare, Nasser Street, told reporters.
"I heard shooting. I saw one person fall down (from a gunshot wound) but I don't have a figure for casualties."
The privately-owned Quryna newspaper, based in Benghazi, said security forces overnight fired live bullets at protesters, killing 14 of them. It published photographs of several people lying on hospital stretchers with bloodstained bandages.
Two Swiss-based exile groups said anti-government forces, joined by defecting police, were battling with security forces for control of the town of Al Bayda, 200km northeast of Benghazi and scene of deadly clashes this week.
A opposition activist in Al Bayda told Reuters the town was calm after the burial of 14 people killed in yesterday's protests. "A massacre took place here yesterday," said the man. The death toll he gave could not be verified.
Ashour Shamis, a London-based Libyan journalist, said protesters had stormed Benghazi's Kuwafiyah prison today and freed dozens of political prisoners. Quryna said 1,000 prisoners had escaped and 150 had been recaptured.
The capital Tripoli has been calmer, with Col Gadafy supporters staging demonstrations of their own. The leader appeared in the early hours of today briefly at Green Square in the centre of Tripoli, surrounded by crowds of supporters. He did not speak.
A sermon at today prayers in Tripoli, broadcast on state television, urged people to ignore reports in foreign media "which doesn't want our country to be peaceful, which ... is the aim of Zionism and imperialism, to divide our country."
Col Gadafy's opponents, using social media networks Facebook and Twitter, had called for new protests after prayers, when most Libyan men visit the mosque.
A Benghazi resident said the city appeared to be calm after prayers but said local people were unsure what would happen following funerals of people killed in the protests.
Text messages sent to mobile phone subscribers thanked people who ignored calls to join protests. "We congratulate our towns which understood that interfering with national unity threatens the future of generations," it said.
Two people in Benghazi, which is about 1,000 km (600 miles) east of Tripoli, told reporters that Saadi Gadafy, a son of the Libyan leader and ex-professional soccer player in Italy, had taken over command of the city.
Libya, holder of the Arab League's rotating presidency, said it was postponing a summit planned for Iraq in March, citing "circumstances in the Arab world". But the league's secretariat said it had received no formal notification.
Libya-watchers say the situation is different from Egypt, because Col Gadafy has oil cash to smooth over social problems. Col Gadafy is respected in much of the country, though support for him is weaker in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi.
"For sure there is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist who is based in Britain but is currently in Tripoli.
"I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Col Gadafy would fight to the very last moment," he said from the Libyan capital.
Agencies