Libyans attack regime pillars, 'control cities'

Protesters on Monday took control of several Libyan cities and a growing number of regime figures defected, as demonstrators sacked pillars of Moamer Kadhafi's hardline rule, reports and witnesses said.

Cities including Benghazi in the east had fallen to demonstrators opposing Kadhafi's 41-year-old regime after military units deserted their posts, said the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR).

With gunfire crackling in the streets of Tripoli, protesters also attacked police stations and the offices of the state broadcaster, Kadhafi's mouthpiece, as well as setting government buildings ablaze.

Kadhafi's son, Seif al-Islam, appeared on television to warn that the north African country faces civil war.

"Libya is at a crossroads. If we do not agree today on reforms... rivers of blood will run through Libya," he said in a fiery but rambling televised speech that betrayed a note of desperation within his father's regime.

"We will take up arms... we will fight to the last bullet. We will destroy seditious elements. If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other... Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia."

The United States said on Monday that it was analysing Seif al-Islam's speech, and that President Barack Obama was "considering all appropriate actions" on Libya.

IFHR head Souhayr Belhassen said protesters had control of Benghazi, Sirte, Tobruk in the east, as well as Misrata, Khoms, Tarhounah, Zenten, Al-Zawiya and Zouara, closer to the capital Tripoli.

Witnesses in Sirte denied that Kadhafi's coastal hometown was under the control of protesters, but others in Al-Zawiya told AFP that police had fled that city.

The IFHR said that besides soldiers and diplomats, other senior regime officials had also defected to the side of protesters, demanding that Kadhafi go after more than 41 years in power.

It said the protests had resulted in up to 400 deaths. Human Rights Watch earlier cited a death toll of 233.

Protesters in the capital attacked the state broadcaster's offices and overnight set alight branches of the People's Committees that are the mainstay of the regime, witnesses told AFP on Monday.

"The headquarters of Al-Jamahiriya Two television and Al-Shababia radio have been sacked," one said by telephone on condition of anonymity.

Broadcasts on both channels were interrupted on Sunday evening but resumed on Monday morning.
"Protesters burned and ransacked the ministry of interior building," in central Tripoli, one witness told AFP by email.

Earlier, heavy gunfire erupted in central Tripoli and several city areas for the first time since the uprising began in eastern Libya, witnesses and an AFP journalist reported.

"When we heard the unrest was approaching, we stocked up on flour and tomatoes. It's definitely the end of the regime. This has never happened in Libya before. We are praying that it ends quickly," a resident of a suburb east of Tripoli told AFP in Cairo by telephone.

"Our neighbour was killed last night," added another resident of central Tripoli. "There is a lot of shooting outside. No one from our family has gone to work today."

Seif al-Islam Kadhafi, 38, who holds no formal government post but wields vast influence as heir apparent, suggested that Benghazi was out of government control.

"At this moment there are tanks being driven by civilians in Benghazi," he said, insisting that the uprising was aimed at installing Islamist rule and that it would be ruthlessly crushed.

Some 500 Libyans meanwhile stormed and looted a South Korean construction site near Tripoli, injuring about 15 Bangladeshi and three South Korean workers, Seoul's foreign ministry said.

Libya's justice minister, Mustapha Abdeljalil, resigned in objection to "the excessive use of force" against demonstrators, the Quryna newspaper website reported.

In Cairo, Libya's Arab League envoy said he had resigned to "join the revolution."

Tripoli's ambassador to Delhi also quit, as did a lower-level diplomat in Beijing who said Kadhafi may have left the country, Al-Jazeera television reported.

Oil prices soared on the turmoil, and the Fitch agency downgraded Libya's debt rating a notch from BBB+ to BBB, adding that a further drop was likely.

Benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in April surged to ê105.08 per barrel, its highest level since late September 2008, before pulling back slightly to ê104.53, up ê2.01 from Friday's close.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for March, known as West Texas Intermediate, hit ê89.50 before later standing at ê89.14, up ê2.94 from Friday.

British energy giant BP said it was preparing to evacuate some staff from Libya, which holds Africa's biggest oil reserves.

Portugal said it sent a military plane to evacuate Europeans, as Washington and Brussels strongly condemned the use of lethal force, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for "the non-use of force and respect for basic freedoms."

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