Gadhafi forces attack

Associated Press

BENGHAZI, Libya

Foreign mercenaries and Libyan militiamen loyal to Moammar Gadhafi tried to roll back the uprising against his rule that has advanced closer to his stronghold in Tripoli, attacking two nearby cities in battles that killed at least 17 people. But rebels made new gains, seizing a military air base, as Gadhafi blamed Osama bin Laden for the upheaval.

The worst bloodshed was in Zawiya, 30 miles west of the capital Tripoli. An army unit loyal to Gadhafi opened fire with automatic weapons on a mosque where residents — some armed with hunting rifles for protection — have been holding a sit-in to support protesters in the capital, a witness said.

The troops blasted the mosque’s minaret with an anti-aircraft gun. A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw the bodies of 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded. A Libyan news website, Qureyna, put the death toll at 23 and said many of the wounded could not reach hospitals because of shooting by “security forces and mercenaries.”

Zawiya, a key city close to an oil port and refineries, is the nearest population center to Tripoli to fall into the hands of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion that began Feb. 15. Hundreds have died in the unrest.

Most of the eastern half of Libya already has broken away, and diplomats, ministers and even a high- ranking cousin have abandoned Gadhafi, who has ruled Libya for 41 years. He is believed to be firmly in control only of the capital, some towns around it, the far desert south and parts of Libya’s sparsely populated center.

Gadhafi’s crackdown has been the harshest by any Arab leader in the wave of protests that has swept the Middle East the past month, toppling the presidents of Libya’s neighbors — Egypt and Tunisia. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has put the death toll in Libya at nearly 300, according to a partial count. Italy’s Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed were “credible.”

Hours after the attack in Zawiya, Gadhafi called in to state TV, and in a rambling speech expressed condolences for the dead but then angrily scolded the city’s residents for siding with the uprising.

He blamed the revolt on bin Laden and teenagers hopped up on hallucinogenic pills given to them “in their coffee with milk, like Nescafe.”

“Shame on you, people of Zawiya; control your children,” he said, addressing residents of the city outside Tripoli where the mosque attack took place.