Libya risks civil war as Gadhafi vows to extinguish opposition

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Libya risks descending into civil war as Moammar Gadhafi, the country's dictator for more than four decades, seems determined to suppress all opposition to his rule.

Speaking on Libyan state television early Monday morning, Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of the Libyan ruler, said the regime would "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet" to maintain control of the country. "We will destroy seditious elements."

In his rambling, finger-wagging address, delivered without notes, he underscored Libya's vast oil wealth and warned it would be lost to Libyans if the country became engulfed in chaos.

Libya's response has been the harshest of any country dealing with protests inspired by the toppling of leaders in Tunisia and then Egypt. There were reports late Sunday of intense gunfire in parts of the capital, Tripoli, amid news that anti-Gadhafi protesters had prevailed against Gadhafi supporters to occupy with city's Green Square.

Earlier, the regime's security forces had opened fire on protesters in Benghazi, the country's second largest city, including many who were burying their dead from a day before and chanting "The people demand the removal of the regime."

Reports suggested government forces used machine guns, anti-tank weapons, mortars and even missiles against civilians, amid rumours that Col. Gadhafi had hired foreign mercenaries. But opposition supporters in the city said that at least one Libyan military brigade had sided with them to take control of the city from Col. Gadhafi's forces.

International reporters are denied access to much of Libya, but Human Rights Watch estimates that at least 233 people had been killed since Friday. "It's a conservative figure," said HRW's Tom Porteous, "based on hospital sources in eastern Libya, Benghazi and three other places."

Protesters had seized some military bases, tanks and other weapons, Mr. Gadhafi said, blaming Islamists, the media, thugs, drunks and drug abusers, foreigners - including Egyptians and Tunisians.

"Libya is not Egypt, it is not Tunisia. There are no political parties in Libya," the younger Mr. Gadhafi said, calling unprecedented protests against his father's rule a foreign plot designed to divide the country and take it over.

Confusion prevailed overnight in Tripoli where the sounds of gunfire were interspersed with women ululating and drivers hooting their car horns.

"We are hearing bursts of gunfire everywhere and they are approaching the city centre," a resident of the Al-Andalous quarter told the Agence France Presse news agency. Another resident reported gunfire in the Mizran area, near downtown Tripoli.

"I'm completely shocked by what's happening in Libya," said John Bell a former Canadian diplomat and director of Middle East Programs at the Toledo International Centre for Peace in Madrid. "If Gadhafi falls, all bets are off."

It was previously unthinkable, Mr. Bell and other observers say, that Mr. Gadhafi could find himself in jeopardy - the man was thought to have enough money to buy off the poor and is viewed by many as some kind of rock star.

"But once these guys appear on television, it usually means it's the end of the road," Mr. Bell said, referring to the younger Mr. Gadhafi's early morning television address.

The Gadhafis, however, appear determined to maintain his primacy at any cost.

Seif Gadhafi said his father was "leading the battle" to keep Libya united.

"If everybody is armed, it is civil war, we will kill each other."

In the event of civil war, he added, no one will want to invest in Libya. "We have one resource that we live on and that is oil," he said. "Separation in Libya will take it back to where it was 60 or 70 years ago."

A text message sent by the regime Sunday to mobile phone subscribers said that protesters in the East were trying to break the region away from central rule.

"The deaths in Benghazi and [nearby]Al Bayda, on both sides, were the result of attacks on weapons stores to use in terrorizing people and killing innocents," the message said. "All Libyan sons, we have to all stand up to stop the cycle of separation and sedition and destruction of our beloved Libya."

This is not the first time the Gadhafi regime has used deadly tactics to suppress an uprising. In 1996, it is widely believed, Libyan authorities killed 1,200 prisoners following political protests.

Seif al-Islam Gadfafi

Seif al-Islam Gadfafi, one of Moammar Gadhafi's sons, was given the task of defending his father's government in a televised address late after the worst unrest of the elder Gaddafi's four-decade rule.

- Age 38, a fluent English speaker with a PhD from the London School of Economics. He is widely seen as belonging to a camp that aims to open Libya's economy.

- Helped lead talks with Western governments that in the past 10 years saw Libya renounce nuclear weapons and end decades of isolation as a foe of the West, paving the way for large-scale investment in its oil sector.

- Clashed publicly with the ruling elite over proposals for reforms. Some analysts believe his conservative opponents have the backing of his brothers Mutassim, a national security adviser, and Khamis, a senior military leader. In December, he took the unusual step of denying a family feud with his brothers.

- His turf war with conservatives has escalated in the past few months, with many Libya-watchers seeing signs of his influence being held in check. Twenty journalists working for al Ghad, a media group which had been linked to him, were briefly arrested. The head of the group stepped down and its flagship newspaper stopped printing.

Reuters News Agency