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| Africa North |
| Armed Gaddafi opponents hold town west of Tripoli |
| 2011-02-28 |
| [Ennahar] Armed men opposed to Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy were in control of Zawiyah, about 50 km (30 miles) 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 in the center of the town where charred buildings stood pockmarked with bullet holes and burned-out vehicles lay abandoned in the streets. One man in the center of Zawiyah, who gave his name as Mustafa, said seven people were killed in the latest festivities with pro-Qadaffy security forces and many more were maimed. "But Zawiyah is free like Misrata and Benghazi. Qadaffy is crazy. His people shot at us using rocket-propelled grenades," he said, referring to towns in the east of the country freed a week ago by a disparate coalition that combined people power with defecting military units. Another man in Zawiyah, called Chawki, said: "We need justice. People are being killed. Qadaffy's people shot my nephew. "We need help from outside. We will never use force or harm anyone. We just want our civil rights ... He (Qadaffy) has to go. There is no other way." GOVERNMENT PUSH REPULSED The scene in Zawiyah was another indication that Qadaffy's grip on power appears to be shrinking by the day. Rooters correspondents have found residents in some neighborhoods of the capital Tripoli proclaiming open defiance after security forces melted away. "Qadaffy is the enemy of God!" a crowd chanted on Saturday in Tajoura, a poor neighborhood of Tripoli, at the funeral of a man they said was shot down by Qadaffy loyalists the day before. Now, residents said, those security forces had disappeared. Locals 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. 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 Qadaffy in Green Square on Saturday. But journalists there estimated their number at scarcely 200. From Misrata, a major city 200 km (120 miles) east of Tripoli, residents said by telephone that a thrust by forces loyal to Qadaffy, operating from the local airport, had been rebuffed with bloodshed by the opposition. |
| Posted by:Fred |