Armed rebels opposed to Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi were in control of Zawiyah, about 50km west of the capital Tripoli, on Sunday and their red, green and black flag flew above the town.
“This is our revolution”, a crowd of several hundred people chanted, punching the air in the centre of the town. Some stood on top of a captured tank, while others crowded around an anti-aircraft gun. Women stood on top of buildings cheering on the men in the crowd below.
“Libya is the land of the free and honourable,” a banner read. Another depicted Gadaffi’s head with the body of a dog.
Bullet holes pock-marked charred buildings where the fighting had been most intense, while burned-out vehicles lay abandoned in the streets.
The scene in Zawiyah was another indication that Gadaffi’s grip on power appeared to be shrinking by the day.
Reuters correspondents found residents even in some neighbourhoods of Tripoli proclaiming open defiance after government security forces melted away.
The UN Security Council unanimously imposed travel and asset sanctions on Gadaffi and close aides, ratcheting up pressure on him to quit before any more blood is shed.
The death toll from nearly two weeks of violence in Libya is estimated by diplomats at about 2Â 000.
It also adopted an arms embargo and called for the deadly crackdown against anti-Gadaffi protesters to be referred to the International Criminal Court for investigation and possible prosecution of anyone responsible for killing civilians.
Rebels in control
A group of foreign journalists were driven to Zawiyah by Libyan authorities on Sunday apparently to show that forces loyal to Gadaffi still held the town. But once there, it was evident that it was the rebels who were in control.
Residents told of fierce fighting for control against pro-Gadaffi paramilitaries armed with heavy weapons.
“We are finished with Gadaffi. He will fall soon. He has to go now. We are losing patience,” one man, called Sabri, said in the centre of Zawiyah.
“Gadaffi is crazy. His people shot at us using rocket-propelled grenades,” said one man, who gave his name as Mustafa.
Another man, called Chawki, said: “We need justice. People are being killed. Gadaffi’s people shot my nephew.”
A doctor at a makeshift clinic in the town mosque said 24 people had been killed in fighting with government loyalists over the past three days, and a small park next to the main square had been turned into a burial ground.
“We need more medicine, more food and more doctors,” said Youssef Mustafa, a doctor. There are a lot of good doctors in Libya but they cannot get into Zawiyah.”
Local people said they had captured 11 pro-Gadaffi fighters, unhurt, and showed reporters two of them who were being held in a cell in the town’s main mosque.
Govt push repulsed
Locals in Tajoura, a poor neighbourhood of Tripoli, had erected barricades of rocks and palm trees across rubbish-strewn streets, and graffiti covered many walls. Bullet holes in the walls of the houses bore testimony to the violence.
“Gadaffi is the enemy of God!” a crowd chanted on Saturday at the funeral of a man they said was shot down by Gadaffi loyalists the day before.
The residents, still unwilling to be identified for fear of reprisals, said troops fired on demonstrators who tried to march from Tajoura to central Green Square overnight, killing at least five people. The number could not be independently confirmed.
Libyan state television again showed a crowd chanting their loyalty to Gadaffi in Green Square on Saturday. But journalists there estimated their number at scarcely 200.
There were queues of people outside most banks in Tripoli as residents waited to receive the 500 Libyan dinars ($400) the government promised it would start distributing on Sunday to give each family in an attempt to ease their grievances.
But many people did not get their money.
“They have not given any money,” said one man in the queue. they just took a photocopy of our ID and registered people on a list.”
From Misrata, a major city 200km east of Tripoli, residents said by telephone that a thrust by forces loyal to Gadaffi, operating from the local airport, had been rebuffed with bloodshed by the opposition.
“There were violent clashes last night and in the early hours of the morning near the airport,” one resident, Mohammed, told Reuters. “An extreme state of alert prevails in the city.”
UN sanctions
Western leaders, their rhetoric emboldened by evacuations that have sharply reduced the number of their citizens stranded in the oilfields and cities of the sprawling desert state, have started speaking out more clearly to say Gadaffi’s 41-year rule must now end.
“The EU had already started to work on restrictive measures such as assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo,” said a statement from EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton.
“Preparations are already well under way. Formal adoption will take place as soon as possible to ensure full and immediate implementation.”
Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said a friendship and cooperation treaty with Libya was “de facto suspended”.
“We have reached, I believe, a point of no return,” Frattini told Sky Italia television. Asked whether Gadaffi should leave power, he said: “It is inevitable for this to happen.
Talk of possible military action by foreign governments remained vague, however. It was unclear how long Gadaffi, with some thousands of loyalists — including his tribesmen and military units commanded by his sons — might hold out against rebel forces comprised of youthful gunmen and mutinous soldiers. – Reuters