US imposes sanctions, says Gadhafi has ‘zero legitimacy’

February 26, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

TOBRUK, Libya

Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, on Friday in an ever more deadly battle for control of the country, as loyalists of dictator Moammar Gadhafi killed opponents by the dozens and grabbed hostages off the streets.

The United States shuttered its Embassy in Tripoli after evacuating its diplomats and most U.S. citizens in Libya, and announced it had begun imposing sanctions on Gadhafi’s regime.

In a dramatic scene at the United Nations, where officials said more than 1,000 may be dead in Libya, the country’s U.N. ambassador broke with Gadhafi and pleaded, “Please United Nations, save Libya.”

Gadhafi has told Libyans, “Either I rule over you or I kill you or I destroy you,” said the ambassador, Mohamed Shalgham, who was hugged by other diplomats, including his deputy, who was shaking and crying as the session concluded.

In Tripoli, government militiamen opened fire “in front of our face,” Zakariya Naas, 38, said in a telephone interview. He said he watched 15, maybe 20, bodies drop.

“The military, they are going in the small streets in between the houses and opened the fire, guns, and [they caught] some live people and took them,” Naas said. “I saw by my own eyes, more than seven young guys” taken hostage at gunpoint, he said.

In the absence of ambulance service, protesters were trying to commandeer people’s cars to get the injured to hospitals. But with crowds in the streets, roads closed and hospitals overwhelmed, they’re largely helpless. As evening fell, he said, “We have to jump from house to house because we cannot walk in the street now.”

There also were reports that Gadhafi loyalists were hiding in ambulances to catch protesters off guard.

With his grip over much of Libya crumbling, Gadhafi, his family and his remaining security forces have chosen to make a stand in Tripoli.

Gadhafi staged a new fist-pumping show of defiance Friday evening, appearing on state-run television at a rally of crowds of cheering supporters in Tripoli’s central Green Square.

But the Libyan leader faced rising international pressure on several fronts.

Little more than a half hour after a chartered jet took off from Tripoli carrying the last U.S. diplomats out of Libya, the White House announced it had begun imposing sanctions on Gadhafi’s regime.

A ferry carrying 300 people, roughly half U.S. citizens, arrived in Malta after an eight-hour voyage from Tripoli. But Joan Polaschik, the chief U.S. diplomat in Tripoli, told CNN from Istanbul, Turkey, that about 90 Americans remain in Libya.

Polaschik said she’s concerned about the safety of the mission’s Libyan employees, saying that “my heart goes out to them.”

U.S. officials — who were careful not to criticize Gadhafi by name before the evacuation — signaled he should go. White House press secretary Jay Carney said that “it’s clear that Col. Gadhafi has lost the confidence of his people” and “his legitimacy has been reduced to zero in the eyes of his people.”

Carney didn’t detail all the sanctions that will be imposed, but said the Treasury Department had begun tracking financial transactions by Libyan regime officials, and that the Pentagon was halting its limited engagement with the Libyan military.

At the U.N., France and Britain circulated a draft resolution that would refer the regime’s atrocities to the International Criminal Court; freeze officials’ assets and ban their travel; and institute an arms embargo.