[Ennahar] Government forces rubbed out two protesters in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Friday, Al Jizz television reported, as a popular uprising against Muammar Qadaffy closed in on his main power base.Pro-Qadaffy forces opened fire after hundreds of people in the Janzour district in western Tripoli started a protest march after Friday prayers, a resident, who asked not to be identified, told Rooters in an email.
He said protesters were also shouting anti-Qadaffy slogans in Fashloum in the city's east, and another resident said security forces had fired into the air there. Al Jizz said two people had been killed and several maimed in heavy shooting in several districts.
Tripoli and the surrounding area, where Qadaffy's forces had managed to stifle earlier protests, appear to be his last main stronghold as the revolt that has put the east under rebel control has also reportedly advanced through the west.
Zawiyah, an oil refining town on the main coastal highway 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli, has on successive nights fought off attempts by government forces to take control, said witnesses who decamped across the Tunisian border at Ras Jdir.
"There are corpses everywhere ... It's a war in the true sense of the word," said Akila Jmaa, who crossed into Tunisia on Friday after traveling from the town.
Saeed Mustafa, who also drove through the town, said:
"There are army and police checkpoints around Zawiyah but there is no presence inside."
REBEL CONTROL
Army and police in the eastern city of Adjabiya told Al Jizz television they had gone over to the opposition.
Other reports say the third city, Misrata, 200 km east of Tripoli, is also under rebel control. Such reports are hard to verify, with foreign correspondents unable to travel around western Libya, and telephone and broadband connections poor.
But Qadaffy's son Saif al-Islam said the government was in control of the west, south and center, and that his family had no intention of leaving.
"We have plans A, B and C. Plan A is to live and die in Libya. Plan B is to live and die in Libya. Plan C is to live and die in Libya," he told Turkey's CNN Turk television.
People in Benghazi, under rebel control, said friends in Tripoli had told them protesters had demonstrated at mosques throughout Tripoli and planned to converge on Green Square.