Muammar Gaddafi struck a defiant stance after two high-profile defections from his regime, saying he was not the one who should go but the Western leaders who decimated his military with air strikes.
Gaddafi's message was undercut by its delivery - a scroll across the bottom of state TV as he remained out of sight.
The White House said the strongman's inner circle was clearly crumbling with the loss of foreign minister Musa Kusa, who flew from Tunisia to Britain on Wednesday.
Ali Abdessalam Treki, a former foreign minister and United Nations General Assembly president, announced his departure on several opposition websites the next day, saying: "It is our nation's right to live in freedom and democracy and enjoy a good life."
Gaddafi accused the leaders of the countries attacking his forces of being "affected by power madness".
"The solution for this problem is that they resign immediately and their peoples find alternatives to them," the Libya state news agency quoted him as saying.
His government's forces have regained momentum on the rapidly moving front line of the battle with opposition forces, retaking the town of Brega after pushing the rebels miles back toward the territory they hold in eastern Libya.
But the rebels said they were undaunted, taking heart from the departures in Gaddafi's inner circle.
"We believe that the regime is crumbling from within," opposition spokesman Mustafa Gheriani said in Benghazi, the rebels' de facto capital.
He compared Gaddafi to a wounded animal, saying: "An injured wolf is much more dangerous than a healthy wolf. But we hope the defections continue and I think he'll find himself with no one around him."
Most top Libyan officials were trying to defect but are under tight security and having difficulty leaving the country, said Ibrahim Dabbashi, the deputy ambassador in Libya's UN mission, which now backs the opposition.
Kusa is privy to all the inner workings of the regime, so his departure could open the door for some hard intelligence, though Britain refused to offer him immunity from prosecution.
"Kusa is one of the pillars of Gaddafi's regime since the 1970s," said Abdel Moneim al-Houni, a former Libyan Arab League representative who was among the first wave of Libyan diplomats to defect this month.
"His defection means that he knew that the end of Gaddafi is coming and he wanted to jump from the sinking boat."
Libyan officials, who initially denied Kusa's defection, said he had resigned because he was sick with diabetes and high blood pressure. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Kusa was given permission to go to Tunisia, but the regime was surprised to learn he had flown to London.
"I talked to many people and this is not a happy piece of news, but people are saying, 'So what? If someone wants to step down that's his decision'," Mr Ibrahim said.
Nations behind the campaign of international air strikes that have crippled Libya's military hailed Kusa's resignation as a sign of weakness in Gaddafi's more-than-41-year reign.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said if there was ever a sign that Gaddafi's inner circle was crumbling, it was Kusa's departure.
In another blow to the regime, US officials revealed on Wednesday that the CIA had sent small teams of operatives into rebel-held eastern Libya while the White House debates whether to arm the opposition.
Despite the setbacks and ongoing air strikes - now led by Nato - Gaddafi loyalists have retaken much of the territory the rebels had captured since air strikes began on March 19.
Rebels had advanced overnight yesterday to the west gate of Brega, a town important to Libya's oil industry that has gone back and forth between rebel and loyalist hands. They were in Brega at dawn, but they soon pulled out under heavy shelling from Gaddafi's forces. Black smoke billowed in the air over Brega as mortars exploded.
"There were loads of (rebel) wounded at the front lines this morning," rebel fighter Fathi Muktar, 41, said.
Many people have fled Ajdabiya, a rebel-held city about 50 miles to the east, for fear that government forces were on their way.
The US has ruled out using ground troops in Libya but it is considering providing arms to the rebels.
Defence secretary Robert Gates, however, told Congress yesterday that the US still knew little about the rebels and that if anyone armed and trained them it should be some other country.
Asked by a politician whether US involvement might inevitably mean "boots on the ground" in Libya, Mr Gates replied, "Not as long as I am in this job."
Nato is among those saying a new UN resolution would be required to arm rebels, though Britain and the US disagree. Several world leaders oppose arming rebels, including Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who said in London that it could "create an environment which could be conducive to terrorism".