Qaddafi Asks Backers to 'Retaliate'
NBC News reports:
Libya's embattled Moammar Gadhafi called on his supporters Friday to defend against the surging oppposition, telling a crowd of thousands that "we are ready to triumph over the enemy."
Gadhafi, wearing a fur cap and sunglasses, spoke from the ramparts of the Red Castle, a historic fort, overlooking Tripoli's central Green Square to more than 1,000 of his supporters, who waved pictures of him and green flags.
Libyan state television showed Ghadafi pumping his fist in the air and telling the crowd to "retaliate against them, retaliate against them" and "prepare to defend the nation and defend the oil."
Across rebellious cities in the east, tens of thousands held rallies in support of the Tripoli protests, the first in that city in days.
Gadhafi loyalists have clamped down hard in Tripoli, the center of the eroding territory that the Libyan leader's regime still controls. The uprising that began Feb. 15 has swept over nearly the entire eastern half of the country, breaking cities there out of his regime's hold.
Even in the pocket of northwestern Libya around Tripoli, several cities have fallen into the hands of the rebellion. Militiamen and Gadhafi forces on Thursday were repelled in trying to take back opposition-held territory in the cities of Zawiya and Misrata, near the capital, in fighting that killed at least 30 people.
Zawiya, an oil refining town on the main coastal highway 30 miles west of Tripoli, has on successive nights fought off attempts by government forces to take control, said witnesses who fled across the Tunisian border.
Click here to read more.
