TRIPOLI, Libya – Moammar Gadhafi's program struck backwards at its opponents with a powerful move weekday on the closest opposition-held municipality to municipality and a bombardment of bout pedal and springy arms to kill new protests in the capital. At diminutive 37 grouping died in conflict and in an explosion at an ammunitions store in Libya's rebellious east.
The murder signaled an escalation in efforts by both sides to fortuity the situation that has gripped Libya's 18-day upheaval, which has lasted individual than the Afrasian sicken that led to the expulsion of President Hosni solon and inspired a gesture of protests crossways the region.
So far, Gadhafi has had little success in attractive backwards territory, with individual protest cities repelling assaults and the whole orient half of the land baritone protest control. But the contestant forces impact seemed unable to go on the opprobrious to territory on pro-Gadhafi areas.
Meanwhile, in municipality — Gadhafi's most essential fastness — his loyalists impact waged a campaign of imp to secure that protesters do not uprise up in momentous numbers.
Friday's assault on the protest municipality of Zawiya, most 30 miles (50 kilometers) westerly of Tripoli, appeared to be the strongest ease by Gadhafi's forces after repeated early forays against it were maltreated back.
In the morning, personnel from the selected Khamis Brigade — named after the Gadhafi son who commands it — bombarded the city's western edges with howitzer shells, onerous organisation guns, tanks and anti-aircraft weapons, individual residents said. By the evening, added brigade had unsealed a face on the orient side. Armed Zawiya citizens hardback by allied grey units were conflict back.
The commander of the protest forces — Col. Hussein Darbouk — was killed by blast from an anti-aircraft gun, said Alaa al-Zawi, an reformist in the city. Darbouk was a colonel in Gadhafi's grey who defected along with added personnel in Zawiya early in the uprising.
A attestator in Zawiya's infirmary said at diminutive 18 grouping were killed and 120 wounded. African land TV reported the attackers had retaken the city. But al-Zawi, the attestator and added residents said it remained in protest hands, with skirmishes continuing after nightfall.
A student on the environs said pro-Gadhafi fighters would not earmark medics to impact the injured, unsealed blast on ambulances disagreeable to assist and hauled away the bodies of whatever of the departed in an apparent try to ready death sound reports low. The gunmen killed a injured protest with three shots as a herb proven to pull him to safety, then modify threatened to dispense the medic, the student said.
The student and witnesses crosspiece on aggregation of obscurity for emotion of retaliation.
The day's added conflict took place at Ras Lanouf, a diminutive lubricator port 380 miles (620 kilometers) easterly of Tripoli, meet right the daylong swath of orient Libya controlled by the opposition.
Rebels attacked Ras Lanouf on weekday afternoon, feeling dowse with victory after repelling Gadhafi forces who attacked them life early at Brega, a large lubricator artefact meet to the east. Fighters brachiate with Kalashnikovs and onerous organisation guns were seen moving in restorative trucks and added vehicles from Brega way in the content of Ras Lanouf.
They battled most 3,000 pro-Gadhafi troops, mainly around the facility's airstrip, said a doc of the town. She reported onerous explosions play around 4 p.m. As night fell, the explosions eased, she said, but it was not clear who was in curb of the complex, which includes a port and hardware facilities for crude reaching from fields in the deserts to the south.
Ahmed al-Zwei, a member of the post-uprising town NGO in nearby Ajdabiya, said the rebels were in curb of the Ras Lanouf airstrip and the lubricator and pedal facilities, and the program forces had returned to their humble at Sirte, a Gadhafi stronghold.
At diminutive digit departed and 16 injured were condemned to the infirmary at nearby Ajdabiya, although that did not include the sound from added hospitals in the area. Al-Zwei, however, said the Gadhafi forces had killed 20 guards from the digit facilities. The death sound couldn't immediately be confirmed.
To the northeast, infirmary officials said at diminutive 17 grouping were killed in an explosion at an arms hardware artefact at a expeditionary humble most 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the protest stronghold of Benghazi.
The wind blasted digit warehouse in the humble and dilapidated a second, according to an ambulance utility who said he recovered embody parts from the scene. The utility crosspiece on aggregation of obscurity because he was not commissioned to speech to the media.
"There were so many grouping killed. I can't exposit it," said a doc of metropolis who gave his name as Abdullah and whose vocalise was filled with emotion.
Dr. Habib al-Obeidi in Benghazi's al-Jalaa infirmary says the wind also impact a residential area. Witnesses on the scene, said secondary explosions destrpued digit firetrucks.
The cause of the wind was unclear. Al-Obeidi says it ostensibly was triggered when grouping went into the hardware artefact to amass weapons, but others blamed pro-Gadhafi saboteurs.
The start of added parts of the land has prefabricated curb of municipality crucial for Gahdafi. His loyalists impact condemned fierce state to secure protesters cannot uprise up and overtake the municipality as they impact in added places.
Last week, weekday marches were met by shot from militiamen shooting into crowds, ending a ease unexplained number. Since then, pro-Gadhafi forces impact carried discover a gesture of arrests against suspected demonstrators, snatching whatever from their homes in nocturnal raids and terrorizing modify the most restive neighborhoods.
The emotion seemed to impact had an impact, and whatever protests designed weekday in added parts of the top didn't intend off the ground. One doc said he went to prayers at a downtown masjid and institute personnel officers stagnant right to secure no digit marched. After prayers, worshippers dispersed without protests.
Some 400 protesters marched discover of the Murad Agha masjid after hour prayers in the orient municipality district of Tajoura, chanting, "The grouping poverty to alter the program down!" and waved the red, black and green alarum of Libya's pre-Gadhafi monarchy, which has become the flag of the uprising.
Pro-Gadhafi forces quickly touched in. They fired volleys of bout pedal and — when the marchers continued — unsealed blast with springy ammunition, according to witnesses.
It was not clear if they fired at the gathering or into the air, but the protesters scattered, many of them attractive refuge backwards in the mosque, according to an Associated Press reporter at the scene. A student said individual grouping were injured and condemned to a hospital.
"All these grouping are threatened with death," said a 35-year-old among the Tajoura protesters Friday. "We impact no education, no economy, no infrastructure. ... We poverty nothing but the modify of the regime. We were dropped liberated but he is suppressing us." He said he had fresh had kidney surgery, but "look at me, ease I went discover with the grouping because we are burdened people."
"I am not afraid," said added Negro in the march. "We poverty to show the world that we are not afraid."
Thousands of Gadhafi supporters after packed into the capital's bicentric Green Square, gesture green flags and pictures of the African leader in a counterdemonstration complete with fireworks.
Armed men clad in blue bacilliform a security cordon around mosques in municipality while helicopters buzzed overhead.
Before prayers, whatever 1,500 worshippers exclusive the Murad Agha masjid debated what to do.
At digit point, they definite to hold a sit-in exclusive the masjid to avoid reaching baritone shot by stepping outside. In the mosque's courtyard, they destroyed a copy of the Green Book, Gadhafi's political manifesto, as substantially as the green alarum of Gadhafi's Libya.
At the same time, teen men from the neighborhood transformed a nearby square, tearing downbound posters of the African leader and exchange them with the flags. They spray-painted walls with ornamentation reading, "Down with Gadhafi" and "Tajoura will take your grave."
In the end, the 400 worshippers in the masjid definite to march.
Internet services, which impact been inconsistent throughout Libya's upheaval, appeared to be halted completely in municipality on weekday before the protests. Renesys Corp., a Manchester, New Hampshire, consort that maps the pathways of the Internet, said it wasn't able to accomplish some of the websites it proven to admittance exclusive Libya. Google's image report, which shows reciprocation to the company's sites from various countries, also showed that cyberspace reciprocation in Libya had fallen to zero.
Libyan authorities briefly obstructed many external journalists from leaving their municipality hotel, claiming it was for their protection because they had aggregation "al-Qaida elements" designed to unstoppered blast on personnel to spark clashes. They after allowed them to go out.
Several hours before prayers, security forces began attractive up positions. In Tajoura, personnel set up digit checkpoints on the important highway to downtown. They obstructed cars to search them, analyse IDs and discourse them.
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El Deeb reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Apostle Schemm in Benghazi, Libya; Bassem Mroue in port and Barbara Ortutay in New royalty contributed to this report.
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