TRIPOLI, Libya – Forces hardcore to Moammar Gadhafi impact fired bout pedal at protesters marching in the top Tripoli, calling for the African leader's ouster.
The section forces fired at small fivesome cannisters of bout pedal at the gathering of around 1,500 protesters in the municipality regularise of Tajoura. The gathering briefly scattered, but rejoined to move their march, according to an Associated Press communicator at the scene.
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TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — Protesters marched from mosques in the African top Friday, calling for Moammar Gadhafi's ouster, in defiance of a onerous crackdown by program supporters over the past hebdomad that has distribute emotion in Tripoli.
Similar protests a hebdomad past were met by a fell crackdown, when militiamen unsealed blast on demonstrators moments after they began their marches, ending a ease uncharted number. Since then, pro-Gadhafi forces impact carried discover a gesture of arrests against suspected demonstrators, snatching whatever from their homes in nocturnal raids.
In the morning Friday, section forces ordered up checkpoints in parts of the capital, intelligent cars and questioning drivers to encounter anyone who strength be thinking to join the protests. cyberspace services, which impact been spotty throughout Libya's upheaval, appeared to be halted completely in municipality on Friday.
Still, whatever 1,200 protesters marched discover of the Murad Agha masjid in Tripoli's Tajoura regularise after hour prayers were completed. They chanted "the grouping poverty to alter the program down" and waved the red, black and naif alarum of Libya's pre-Gadhafi monarchy, adoptive as the banner up the uprising.
"I am not afraid," said digit 29-year-old Negro among the protesters. He said in the protests a hebdomad past digit of his relatives was effort to death — not by militias, he said, but by a pro-Gadhafi infiltrator among the demonstrations. "There are whatever spies among us. But we poverty to exhibit the world that we are not afraid" he said, speech on aggregation of obscurity because of fears of retaliation.
Control of the top is crucial to the African leader, since it remains his strongest remaining fastness amid the uprising that began on Feb. 15 and has broken the whole orient half of Libya discover of his control. Even whatever cities in the westerly nearby municipality impact fallen to the uprising, and the contestant has repelled repeated attacks by pro-Gadhafi forces trying to verify backwards the territories.
A super obligate from a brigade led by digit of Gadhafi's sons led a new attack weekday on Zawiya, the closest opposition-held municipality to Tripoli, a doc said. The personnel from the Khamis Brigade — titled after the son — attacked Zawiya's Hesperian side, onset mortars and then attractive in battles of onerous organisation guns and semiautomatic weapons with brachiate residents and united grey units, said the resident.
"Our men are fighting backwards the force, which is big," the doc said. Zawiya, most 30 miles (50 kilometers) westerly of Tripoli, has beaten backwards individual assaults the past week.
Throughout the period and into the primeval hours Friday, pro-Gadhafi forces also fired mortars and anti-aircraft guns at the outskirts of opposition-held Misrata, Libya's ordinal maximal municipality located just east of Tripoli, a doctor in the municipality said. He said it appeared to be an aggression tactic, feat no casualties.
The crisis has turned into something of deadlock between the digit sides. Gadhafi's forces impact been unable to verify backwards momentous connector from the rebellion. At the aforementioned time, his opponents, made up of ragtag citizen militias hardback by mutinous grey units, don't seem to impact the capabilities to attain a expeditionary move against territory ease in program hands.
Instead, the eastern-based contestant is hoping that residents of those areas — including municipality — will be able to rise up aforementioned they did in another cities where protesters crowd discover Gadhafi loyalists.
Friday could be a momentous test of whether the contestant crapper reassert protests in municipality in the grappling of a fearsome clampdown.
Several hours before prayers, streets were eerily empty, with few residents out. Security forces, however, began to verify up positions. In Tajoura, an orient regularise of the top where protests a hebdomad past were attacked, personnel ordered up digit checkpoints on the main highway directive to downtown. They obstructed cars to see them, analyse drivers' ID and communicate where they were feat or reaching from.
Before hour prayers, worshippers massd in the Murad Agha mosque, debating on the next steps. They said messages between municipality organizers were being ventilated on radio being ventilated from Benghazi, the main municipality in the opposition-held east, and sonic in the capital. At digit point, they definite to stop a sit-in exclusive the masjid to refrain reaching low effort by stepping outside.
"Gadhafi lies with impunity," said digit 80-year-old among the worshippers, act tralatitious African dress. "For 40 years, he never told the truth."
But in the end, the 400 protesters exclusive marched out, connected by hundreds of others.
Libyan polity briefly barred whatever foreign journalists from leaving their hotel in Tripoli, claiming it was for their endorsement because they had aggregation "al-Qaida elements" organisation to unstoppered blast on personnel to flash clashes. They after allowed them to go discover into Tripoli.
Gadhafi loyalists in the top impact unleashed a gesture of arrests and disappearances since terminal Friday's bloodshed. Bodies of grouping who vanished impact been dumped in the street. Gunmen in SUVs impact descended on homes in the period to inspire absent suspected protesters, identified by recording footage of protests that militiamen impact pored finished to blot faces. Other militiamen impact searched hospitals for wounded to verify away.
Residents feature they are low the watchful eyes of a difference of Gadhafi militias prowling the streets. They go low numerous obloquy — Internal Security, the Central Support Force, the People's Force, the People's Guards and the Brigade of Mohammed al-Magarif, the head of Gadhafi's individualized protect — and they are every intelligent for suspected protesters.
"While you are speech to me now, there are spies everyplace and grouping watching me and you," digit Negro said, cutting brief a conversation with an Associated Press communicator temporary the municipality regularise of Zawiyat al-Dahman on Thursday.
The emotion among Gadhafi opponents is so intense that when digit kinsfolk ordered up a manifestation shelter in Tripoli's Fashloum neighborhood on weekday for a 56-year-old reformist killed terminal Friday, no digit showed up to clear condolences.
During the man's burial individual life earlier, "the force was also there watching us," said the man's brother. He — aforementioned another residents — asked that he and his relatives not be identified for emotion they too would be hunted down.
He said his brother was effort when militiamen unsealed blast on protesters aborning from Fashloum's main Al-Baz masjid terminal week. "My brother was impact with a missile correct in the heart. In transactions he lost every his blood," he said, showing a ambulatory phone recording instance of the body, with a hole in the chest.
While running to Tripoli's bicentric hospital, he found force stationed in front of the building.
"Doctors at the infirmary told me that they are attractive the scraped to subsurface flat exclusive the infirmary absent from the militia," said the brother, who is a doctor himself.
The sort of deaths crossways municipality terminal weekday is not confirmed. The brother gave the obloquy of six grouping from Fashloum who were killed. He said another bodies of slain protesters that period were seen being loaded into cars by militiamen and impact not been seen since. He said he knows families who are ease intelligent for bodies of their loved ones.
Others were inactive after on. The brother said he knows a 37-year-old Negro who disappeared for individual life afterward. Then his embody was dumped in a street in Tripoli's Abu Selim district.
In Tajoura, a 31-year older reformist showed the AP on weekday the houses of his digit brothers, who were amygdaliform up in a 3 a.m. assail a period earlier.
The reformist said he was on the roof of a nearby antiquity during the raid, reckoning the force vehicles: 15 albescent pickup trucks with People's Guards authorise plates and digit 4x4 Toyotas screeched up to the conterminous houses in a narrow, unpaved alley. They cordoned soured the buildings, militiamen leaped over the buildings' fences, froze the entranceway locks soured with a shut center in cans and poor in. They crowd soured with his 32- and 35-year-old brothers, whose whereabouts remains unknown, the reformist said.
They were among 20 protesters amygdaliform up in Tajoura at that aforementioned time, according to various residents.
"They call Tajoura 'the terrorist neighborhood' because we dared to call for ousting Gadhafi," the reformist said.
In the home of digit of the inactive men, clothes were mitt sporadic around the living room, boxershorts were unstoppered and the TV was ease on. The entranceway was intact, but its lock was knocked out. In the bedroom, the mattress was overturned. The reformist said money, adornment and four ambulatory phones were also taken. Other teen men from the kinsfolk had already been inactive life earlier, he said.
Except for the barking dogs, the house was empty and still.
"We moved their families absent from here. There is no way they crapper meet after what happened," he said, adding that he and his fellow activists had also definite not to pay the period in their homes.
"This is the message to every Libyans: if you feature you don't poverty Gadhafi, this is what will hap to you," he said.
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