Libyan streets filled with blood

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Report: Libya fighter jets attack protesters in Tripoli
2 pilots defect; death toll climbs; U.S. orders non-emergency embassy staff out

TRIPOLI — Libyan military aircraft fired live ammunition at crowds of anti-government protesters in Tripoli, Al-Jazeera television reported Monday.

"What we are witnessing today is unimaginable," said Adel Mohamed Saleh, an activist in the capital whose accounts could not be independently confirmed. "Warplanes and helicopters are indiscriminately bombing one area after another. There are many, many dead.

"Our people are dying. It is the policy of scorched earth," he said.

Fathi al-Warfali, the Libyan activist who heads the Swiss-based Libyan Committee for Truth and Justice, who was taking part in a protest outside U.N. European headquarters in Geneva, said he had heard the same reports.

The accounts came as deep cracks opened in Moammar Gadhafi's regime after more than 40 years in power, with diplomats abroad and the justice minister at home resigning, air force pilots defecting and a fire raging at the main government hall after the clashes in the capital Tripoli. Protesters called for another night of defiance in Tripoli's main square despite the government's heavy crackdown.

Arabiya television said the Tripoli clashes Monday left 160 dead.

Human Rights Watch said Monday that at least 233 people had been killed since the protests began last week, but opposition groups put the figure much higher. Most fatalities were in Benghazi, a region where Gadhafi's grip has always been weaker than elsewhere in the oil-producing desert nation.



Gadhafi's son vowed Sunday that his father and security forces would fight "until the last bullet."

An analyst for London-based consultancy Control Risks said the use of military aircraft on his own people indicated the end was approaching for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
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"These really seem to be last, desperate acts. If you're bombing your own capital, it's really hard to see how you can survive, " said Julien Barnes-Dacey, Control Risks' Middle East analyst.

"But I think Gaddafi is going to put up a fight ... in Libya more than any other country in the region, there is the prospect of serious violence and outright conflict," he said.

Gadhafi's regime appeared to be preparing a new major assault in the capital Monday night. State TV at nightfall announced that the military had "stormed the hideouts of saboteurs" and called on the public to back the security forces as protesters called for a new demonstration in central Green Square and in front of Gadhafi's Tripoli residence.

Snipers had taken position on the roofs of buildings around Tripoli, apparently to stop people from outside the capital from joining the march, according to Mohammed Abdul-Malek, a London-based opposition activist in touch with residents.

Communications into the capital appeared to have been cut, and mobile phones of residents could not be reached from outside the country. State TV showed images of hundreds of Gadhafi supporters rallying in central Green Square Monday evening, waving pictures of the Libyan leader and palm fronds.

Fighter pilots claim asylum
Reuters reported that two Libyan fighter jets flown by Libyan air force colonels were granted permission to land in Malta after asking for political asylum.

They had left from a base near Tripoli and had flown low over Libyan airspace to avoid detection. They arrived shortly after two civilian helicopters carrying seven people claiming to be French landed after a flight from Libya.

Sources said the fighter pilots defected because they would not fire on the Tripoli protesters.

U.K.-based opposition activist Ahmed Sawalem, who is keeping in touch with protesters in Libya, told msnbc.com that there were reports of planes bombing a weapons store south of Benghazi in Ajdabiya "so the protesters cannot get hold of them, to use them to fight." He said a number of people in the area were thought to have been killed in the attack.
Video: Violence in Libya, nearing civil war (on this page)

A suggestion that Gadhafi may have fled was fueled when British Foreign Secretary William Hague said he had "some information" the dictator was heading for Venezuela.


However a senior government source in Caracas denied that and a U.K. official said Hague had been referring only to unconfirmed media reports.