Benghazi, Libya:
Thousands of mercenary and irregular forces struck back at a tightening circle of rebellions around the capital, Tripoli, on Thursday, trying to fend off an uprising against the 40-year rule of Col. Muammar el-Gaddafi, who blamed the violence on "hallucinogenic" drugs and Osama bin Laden.
The fighting on Thursday centered on Zawiya, a gateway city to the capital, just 30 miles west of Tripoli, where government opponents had briefly claimed victory. Colonel Gaddafi's forces -- a mixture of special brigades and African mercenaries -- fought back, blasting a mosque that had been used as a refuge by protesters, a witness told The Associated Press.
An exiled Libyan who had been in contact with members of the opposition in Zawiya said Colonel Gaddafi's forces attacked beginning about 5 a.m., initiating a battle that lasted 4 hours. The rebel forces fought back with hunting rifles and about 100 were killed, he said.
Fighting intensified in other cities near Tripoli -- Misurata, 130 miles to the east, and Sabratha, about 50 miles west. There were also reports that Zuara, 75 miles west of the capital, had fallen to anti-government militias.
To the east, at least half of the nation's 1,000-mile Mediterranean coast, up to the port of Ra's Lanuf, appeared to have fallen to opposition forces, a Guardian correspondent in the area reported.
"We are not afraid -- we are watching," said a doctor by telephone from Sabratha. The city was under a state of siege, he said. Stores were closed and buildings belonging to the police and Colonel Gaddafi's revolutionary committees were in ruins, after being burned by protesters. "What I am sure about," he said, "is that change is coming."
Colonel Gaddafi, speaking in an impassioned 30-minute phone call to a Libyan television station, appeared particularly incensed by the revolt in Zawiya, close as it was to the capital. In a rambling discourse, he blamed the uprising on the leader of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, saying he had drugged the people, giving them "hallucinogenic pills in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe."
"Those people who took your sons away from you and gave them drugs and said let them die are launching a campaign over cellphones against your sons, telling them not to obey their fathers and mothers, and they are destroying their country," he said.
The choice of peace or war, he said, belonged to the people of Zawiya -- a town of 1,000 martyrs, as he called it -- which had now become the focus of many of the thousands of mercenaries and irregular security forces he called back to reinforce his stronghold in the capital on Wednesday.
One of his sons, Seif al-Islam el-Gaddafi, said in an interview aired on Libyan state television that life was "quiet" in Tripoli; another son, Saadi, told The Financial Times that "50 or 60 percent of the people are working normally" in the capital. The protesters he said, echoing his father, were under the influence of "very powerful" drugs like amphetamines and ecstasy.
Libyan state television flashed an urgent bulletin later Thursday, in English, saying: "We have seized voice recordings from some members of Al Qaeda who have joined in the city of Zawiya aiming to do sabotage actions."
In an apparent effort to demonstrate Colonel Gaddafi's control, his government announced on Thursday that it would allow teams of journalists into the country, though without guaranteeing their safety. Reporters who entered the country illegally risked arrest and could be considered collaborators of Al Qaida, the State Department warned.
Distrustful of even his own generals, Colonel Gaddafi has for years quietly built up a ruthless and loyal force to safeguard his rule. It is made up of either special brigades headed by his sons, segments of the military loyal to his native tribe and its allies, and legions of African mercenaries he has helped train and equip. Many are believed to have fought elsewhere, in places like Sudan, but he has now called them back.
Witnesses said on Wednesday that thousands of members of this irregular army had massed on roads to Tripoli. The scene, one said, was evocative of anarchic Somalia: clusters of heavily armed men in mismatched uniforms clutching machine guns and willing to carry out orders to kill Libyans that other police and military units, and even fighter pilots, have refused.
Some residents of Tripoli said they took the gathering army as a sign that the uprising might be entering a decisive stage, with Colonel Gaddafi fortifying his stronghold in the capital and protesters there gearing up for their first organized demonstration after days of spontaneous rioting and bloody crackdowns.
"A message comes to every mobile phone about a general protest on Friday in Tripoli," one resident of Tripoli said. Colonel Gaddafi's menacing speech to the country on Tuesday -- when he vowed to hunt down opponents "house by house" -- increased their determination "100 percent," the resident said.
At dozens of checkpoints lining the road west of Tripoli the forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi required not only the presentation of official papers but also displays of flag-waving, fist-pumping enthusiasm for Colonel Gaddafi, witnesses said.
"You are trying to convince them you are a loyalist," one resident said, "and the second they realize that you are not, you are done for."
The overall death toll so far has been impossible to determine. Human rights groups say they have confirmed about 300 deaths, though witnesses suggested the number was far larger. On Wednesday, Franco Frattini, the foreign minister of Italy -- the former colonial power with longstanding ties -- said that nationwide more than 1,000 people were probably dead in the strife.
Egyptian officials said Wednesday that nearly 30,000 people -- mostly Egyptians working in Libya -- had fled across their border. People fleeing west into Tunisia said the rebellion was now taking off far from its origins just a week ago in the eastern city of Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, which fell over the weekend.
In the latest blow to the Libyan leader, a cousin who is one of his closest aides, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, announced on Thursday that he had defected to Egypt in protest against the bloody crackdown, denouncing what he called "grave violations to human rights and human and international laws," The Associated Press reported.
But amid spreading rebellion and growing defections by top officials, diplomats and segments of the regular army, Colonel Gaddafi's preparations for a defense of Tripoli also reframed the question of who might still be enforcing his rule. It is a puzzle that military analysts say reflects the singular character of the society he has shaped -- half tribal, half police state -- for the past 41 years.
"It is all shadow and mirrors and probably a great deal of corruption as well," said Paul Sullivan, a professor at Georgetown who has studied the Libyan military.
Colonel Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup, has always kept the Libyan military too weak and divided to do the same thing to him. About half its relatively small 50,000-member army is made up of poorly trained and unreliable conscripts, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Many of its battalions are organized along tribal lines, ensuring their loyalty to their own clan rather than to top military commanders -- a pattern evident in the defection of portions of the army to help protesters take the eastern city of Benghazi.
Colonel Gaddafi's own clan dominates the air force and the upper level of army officers, and they are believed to have remained loyal to him, in part because his clan has the most to lose from his ouster.
Other clans, like the large Warfalla tribe, have complained that they have been shut out of the top ranks, Professor Sullivan noted, which may help explain why they were among the first to turn on Colonel Gaddafi.
Untrusting of his officers, Colonel Gaddafi built up an elaborate paramilitary force -- accompanied by special segments of the regular army that report primarily to his family. It is designed to check the army and in part to subdue his own population. At the top of that structure is his roughly 3,000-member revolutionary guard corps, which mainly guards him personally.
Then there are the militia units controlled by Colonel Gaddafi's seven sons. A cable from the United States Embassy in Libya released by WikiLeaks described his son Khamis' private battalion as the best equipped in the Libyan Army.
His brother Sa'ad has reportedly used his private battalion to help him secure business deals. And a third brother, Muatassim, is Colonel Gaddafi's national security adviser. In 2008 he asked for $2.8 billion to pay for a battalion of his own, to keep up with his brothers.
But perhaps the most significant force that Colonel Gaddafi has deployed against the current insurrection is one believed to consist of about 2,500 mercenaries from countries like Chad, Sudan and Niger that he calls his Islamic Pan African Brigade.
Colonel Gaddafi began recruiting for his force years ago as part of a scheme to bring the African nations around Libya into a common union, and the mercenaries he trained are believed to have returned to Sudan and other bloody conflicts around Africa. But from the accounts of many witnesses Colonel Gaddafi is believed to have recalled them -- and perhaps others -- to help suppress the uprising.
Kareem Fahim reported from Benghazi, Libya, and David D. Kirkpatrick from the Tunisian border with Libya. Reporting was contributed by Sharon Otterman, Mona El-Naggar and Neil MacFarquhar in Cairo.