Qaddafi Defies Rebels Amid Reports of Bodies on Tripoli Streets

Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi told state television he hasn’t fled the country as rebel flags flew over the second-biggest city and corpses lay on the streets of the capital after a security crackdown on protests.

“I am here in Tripoli and not in Venezuela,” the Libyan leader said in comments broadcast early today. “Don’t believe the dog news agencies,” he said, leaning out of a car to speak into a microphone while holding a white umbrella to shelter from the rain.

In Tripoli, bodies are lying outside a day after protesters were attacked by pro-Qaddafi gunmen, the opposition National Front for the Salvation of Libya said. In Benghazi, the independence flag of the constitutional monarchy overthrown by Qaddafi in 1969 flew on streets and over several buildings and there were no security forces in evidence except traffic police, witnesses said. Oil prices rose almost 10 percent.

Libya, holder of Africa’s largest oil reserves, is the latest nation to be rocked by protests ignited by last month’s ouster of Tunisia’s president and fanned by the Feb. 11 fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Violent unrest has also spread to Bahrain, Iran and Yemen. The risk for Libya is that an end to Qaddafi’s rule may not be enough to stabilize a country lacking state institutions or a succession mechanism.

‘No Return’

“It’s gone beyond the point of no return in Libya and Qaddafi will go,” Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association in Washington, told Bloomberg Television by telephone today. “There will be fighting, there will be some bloodshed but I think we are looking at a matter of a day, two days, three days.”

Click to read more...