New blasts rocked the Libyan capital yesterday as leader Muammar Gaddafi vowed to remain in the land of his ancestors in the face of new calls for him to go and with rebels pressing their campaign to oust him.
At least 13 blasts were heard in Tripoli before and just after 2300 GMT Saturday. An AFP journalist was unable to say immediately what the targets had been.
State television channel Al Jamahiriya reported that “the colonialist crusader aggressor,” a reference to Nato, had raided civilian and military sites in the Ain Zara district and Tajoura in the eastern suburbs of Tripoli.
The television, quoting a military source, said there had been victims but did not give any figure.
Earlier, Colonel Gaddafi repeated his intention to remain in power.
“They are asking me to leave. That’s a laugh. I will never leave the land of my ancestors or the people who have sacrificed themselves for me,” he said in a loudspeaker address to supporters in Zawiyah, some 50 kilometres west of Tripoli.
Western and regional powers met in Istanbul on Friday for the fourth gathering of the Libya contact group, which saw a fresh call on Col Gaddafi to go after more than four decades in power.
“I’m ready to sacrifice myself for my people, and I will never quit this land sprinkled with the blood of my ancestors who fought Italian and British colonialists,” he said of the five-month-long revolt against his rule.
“These rats have taken our people hostage in Benghazi, Misurata and the western mountains, using them as human shields,” Col Gaddafi said of insurgents in the rebel capital in the east and port city in the west.
“Five million armed Libyans will march on them and liberate the occupied towns as soon as the order is given,” he added.
Libya’s rebels on Saturday suffered their bloodiest day yet in the offensive to wrest control of Brega from Gaddafi troops, as medics said the death toll had risen to at least 12.
Meanwhile later yesterday the battle for Brega switched from the desert to intense street fighting in the oil town’s northeast.
Rebel forces re-entered Brega – putting them within sight of a major strategic victory – but said they had not yet managed to wrest control of the town from col Gaddafi’s troops, who have held it since April.
“Some small groups have made it inside, but we do not control the whole (town) yet,” said Mohammed Zawi, a spokesman for the rebel forces.
He also dismissed rumours that Gaddafi troops had abandoned the town altogether. “It is now close fighting,” he said, indicating a new phase in the four-day rebel campaign.
Until now heavy artillery had set the tenor of the battle, but mortars and rockets appear to have given way to heavy machine guns – a more useful weapon for fighting at closer quarters.
But that did little to stem the bloodshed.
Some 13 rebel fighters have now been killed and 204 wounded since the battle for Brega began on Thursday.
In Brussels, a Nato statement said its forces were monitoring “the dynamic situation across the country, including around Brega.”
Nestled on the Gulf of Sirte, Brega is made up of three areas, a residential area in the east, a major oil facility in the west and an old town in between.