Libya's War of the Colonels: Col. Gaddafi Meet Col. Hussein (Time.com)

At a former Army Air Defense base in a darkened, partially constructed neighborhood of Benghazi, Colonel Tarek Saad Hussein is readying the revolutionary forces for the ultimate battle. Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi will likely fight to the death in order to keep control of his capital Tripoli, according to soldiers and revolutionary activists alike. But the banners in front of Benghazi's High Court read: "Libya, one body. Tripoli, our heart." The east is now under opposition control, but Libya will not split, they say: the revolution is not over until Tripoli is won and a dictator is toppled.

The liberation of Tripoli has become the battle cry in Benghazi, Libya's second largest city. "We will never abandon Tripoli," shouted the Imam who led Friday's open-air noon prayer. In response, a chorus of "God is Great!" rose from the thousands who had gathered beneath the stormy Mediterranean skies to pray. (See Yuri Kozyrev's photographs from the liberated city of Benghazi.)

For Colonel Hussein, who sits in a stark office within a darkened base equipped with anti-aircraft guns, Libya's revolution is still very much a people's revolution. But the military that has defected to the opposition - more than 10,000 troops from Benghazi to the Egyptian border, he says - now have an important task at hand. "We are trying to collect as many as we can from Benghazi and other towns in order to prepare a force to march on Tripoli," he says.

Hussein is coordinating with other military officers, tribal sheikhs, and volunteers across the region, he says, to launch the final battle that many believe may be necessary to topple the 41-year-old dictatorship. Already, Hussein says 2,000 armed volunteers, soldiers and reservists have reached the capital in small groups, the last group arriving on Friday night. Soon, he says, there will be more.

But it's not a military coup, he cautions. "It's a youth uprising," he insists. "The fight is between the young people and the regime." It wasn't until Gaddafi met their peaceful demonstrations with violent force "killing them in cold blood," that it was time to intervene, he says. "They are the ones who started the revolution and we are completing it." (See an account of the mayhem in Gaddafi's Tripoli.)

And inevitably, the military will have a big role to play in the aftermath of Gaddafi's fall. "We hope to have a democratic state, not a military state," Hussein says. "We are fed up with a military state. The military is only for protecting the nation - not for ruling it."

But to get there, the revolutionary forces will most certainly have to capture the capital, which means getting past the Gaddafi stronghold of Sert, and past the superior weaponry of Gaddafi's loyalist forces and mercenaries in Tripoli itself. In recent days, Hussein has been placing calls to military officers and residents in Sert, which stands in between Benghazi and Tripoli. "We don't want to treat them as they were treated before," he says, meaning inhumanely. "And we don't want to behave like killers. So we made an appeal, as a warning, to allow us to move freely toward Tripoli."

In the past week, the eastern revolutionaries say, Gaddafi has been losing control of his country, one piece at a time. His forces, diplomats, ministers, and bureaucrats have fallen away. There is unity among the rebels, he says, as well as increasing determination to reach the end game. "We are preparing ourselves, and we will march to Tripoli to bombard Bab Bin Gashin," Hussein says, referring to Gaddafi's Tripoli stronghold where he believes the ruler is hiding. "We have planes and pilots who were assigned by Gaddafi to bomb Benghazi, but who refused and landed here safely. We have pilots who are ready to crash their planes in a suicidal way if necessary." (Will Gaddafi fall or fight back?)

Is the ultimate plan to kill Gaddafi, as many eager revolutionaries along the Mediterranean coast say? Hussein peers up over his rectangular reading glasses and offers a wry smile: "We hope to catch him alive."

On Friday evening, Gaddafi delivered another defiant speech before a crowd of supporters in Tripoli. He vowed to "open up the arsenals" and to defeat his opposition. But Hussein didn't have time to see it because he was too busy planning the days ahead. "This isn't a football match," he says. And he's not afraid of the man in Tripoli.

No one expects Gaddafi to go quietly. His remaining forces are well-equipped, and his son Khamees' battalion includes an estimated 3,000 troops, about half of whom are mercenaries, Hussein says. On Thursday, Libya's now ex-Justice Minister Mustafa Mohamed Abd el-Jalil told al-Jazeera that he believes Gaddafi has chemical and nuclear weapons. Hussein isn't worried. "There are no nuclear weapons," he says dismissively. And Gaddafi's once fearsome stock of chemical weapons? "All that stuff was handed over during the Lockerbie deal," says Hussein, referring to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over the Scottish town and the controversial 2009 decision to repatriate a Libyan sentenced for the crime from a prison in Scotland. "He thought that by buying American support at the time, they would let him stay in power forever."

Hussein chuckles. "He forgot about the Libyan people."

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Fear stalks Tripoli, celebrations in Libya's East (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) – Thousands of Libyans celebrated the liberation of the eastern city of Benghazi from the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, who was reported to have sent a plane to bomb them on Wednesday as he clung to power.

The crew bailed out of the aircraft after it took off from the capital Tripoli. It then crash-landed south-west of Benghazi, Libya's Quryna newspaper cited a military source as saying, averting a fresh tragedy in almost a week of bloodshed.

Tripoli, along with western Libya, is still under Gaddafi's control and people there said they were too afraid of pro-government militia to go out after Gaddafi threatened violence against protesters in a speech on Tuesday night.

As many as 1,000 people have been killed in since the revolt began around a week ago, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said as world leaders scrambled to evacuate their citizens and disagreed on how to end the turmoil.

Oil prices climbed above $110 a barrel amid fears chaos could spread to other oil-producing nations and choke supplies, which could dash hopes of any quick global economic recovery.

An air force officer, Major Rajib Faytouni, said in Benghazi, the cradle of the revolt, that he had witnessed up to 4,000 mercenaries arrive on Libyan transport planes over three days starting from 14 February, the London Guardian reported.

"That's why we turned against the government. That and the fact there was an order to use planes to attack the people," he told the newspaper in Benghazi.

Hossam Ibrahim Sherif, director of the Benghazi health center, told Reuters about 320 people had been killed in the city.

With much of the oil-producing east said to be under control of the protesters, an empty jail burned in Benghazi and people let off firecrackers and honked their horns to mark the end of days of bloodshed there.

Britain's Sky News showed footage of anti-aircraft missiles at what it said was an abandoned military base near Tobruk, also in the east.

Countries with strong business ties to Africa's third largest oil producer scrambled to evacuate thousands of citizens and a Turkish worker was shot dead at a building site near the capital, Turkish officials said.

A British oil worker said he was stranded with 300 other people at a camp in the east of Libya, where he said local people had looted oil installations.

"We are living every day in fear of our lives as the local people are armed," James Coyle told the BBC.

"They've looted ... the German camp next door, they've taken all their vehicles, all our vehicles ... everything. So we are here desperate for the British government to come and get us."

Britain said it was pressing the Libyan authorities to reopen a military airport to help with evacuations and calling for a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the violence.

France became the first country to call for sanctions. "I would like the suspension of economic, commercial and financial relations with Libya until further notice," President Nicolas Sarkozy said.

But in the latest sign of international division over how to deal with Gaddafi, the prime minister of Qatar said he did not want to isolate Libya, where several senior officials have declared their backing for protests that began about a week ago.

Interior Minister Abdel Fattah Younes al Abidi and a senior aide to Gaddafi's influential son Saif were the latest to change sides.

"I resigned from the Gaddafi Foundation on Sunday to express dismay against violence," Youssef Sawani, executive director of the foundation, said in a text message sent to Reuters.

Gadaffi has deployed troops to the west of the capital to try to stop the revolt that started in the east from spreading. In the east, many soldiers have withdrawn from active service.

General Soliman Mahmoud al-Obeidy told Reuters in Tobruk the Libyan leader was no longer trustworthy. "I am sure he will fall in the coming days," he said.

Gaddafi, once respected by many Libyans despite his repressive rule, called for a mass show of support on Wednesday, but only around 150 people gathered in Tripoli's central Green Square, carrying the Libyan flag and Gaddafi's portrait.

Most streets were almost deserted and a handful of cafes appeared to be the only businesses open despite government appeals for a return to work sent to subscribers of Libya's two state-controlled mobile phone companies.

"Lots of people are afraid to leave their homes in Tripoli and pro-Gaddafi gunmen are roaming around threatening any people who gather in groups," Marwan Mohammed, a Tunisian, said as he crossed Libya's western border into Tunisia.

An estimated 1.5 million foreign nationals are working or traveling in Libya and a third of the population of seven million are immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa.

Witnesses described scenes of chaos as people tried to leave. "It's a Biblical exodus," said Italy's Frattini, predicting several hundred thousand would seek refuge in Italy.

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The U.N. Security Council condemned the use of violence and called for those responsible for attacks on civilians to be held to account and British Prime Minister David Cameron called for a formal resolution.

"The Libyan regime is using appalling levels of force and violence against its own people including using aeroplanes that are shooting at people," he said.

Protests in Libya's neighbors Egypt and Tunisia have ousted entrenched leaders, but Gaddafi, who took power in a military coup in 1969 and has ruled the mainly desert country with a mixture of populism and tight control, is still fighting back.

On Tuesday, he declared he was ready to die "a martyr" in Libya. "I shall remain here defiant," he said on state television, dismissing protesters as "rats and mercenaries."

Up to a quarter of Libya's oil production has been closed, based on calculations from firms in the country, which stretches from the Mediterranean into the Sahara and pumps nearly 2 percent of world oil output.

The White House said global powers must speak with one voice in response to the "appalling violence" in Libya and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would take "appropriate steps" in time.

But Washington has little leverage over Libya, which was a U.S. adversary for most of Gaddafi's rule until it agreed in 2003 to abandon a weapons-of-mass-destruction program and moved to settle claims from the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Gaddafi said he would call on people to "cleanse Libya house by house" unless protesters surrendered. "Chase them, arrest them, hand them over," he said.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara, Christian Lowe, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Souhail Karam; Brian Love, Daren Butler; Dina Zayed, Sarah Mikhail and Tom Perry in Cairo and a Reuters correspondent in Libya; Henry Foy in New Delhi; writing by Janet Lawrence and Philippa Fletcher; editing by Giles Elgood)

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Nine die in Libya's 'Day of Anger' (AFP)

NICOSIA (AFP) – At least nine people were reported killed in Libya during a "Day of Anger" against strongman Moamer Kadhafi inspired by fiery protests across the region.

"Seven protesters were killed in the demonstrations Thursday at Benghazi," the country's second city, a local medical official who requested anonymity said, without giving further details.

The regime of Kadhafi, who has been in power since 1969, vied to counter the swelling opposition movement with its own pro-government rallies in the capital Tripoli and other cities.

But the unrest has deepened as the opposition mobilises via Facebook and mobile phone messages, emulating protest movements across North Africa and the Middle East that have already brought down the regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.

Geneva-based Human Rights Solidarity, citing witnesses, meanwhile said rooftop snipers in the city of Al-Baida east of Benghazi had killed 13 protesters and wounded dozens of others.

The Quryna newspaper, close to Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam, cited official sources as putting the death toll in Al-Baida at two. It traced the unrest to a police shutdown of local shops that soon escalated.

The newspaper said several cars were torched and cited a "well-informed security source" as saying that a senior local security official had been sacked after the deaths in Al-Baida.

The Al Youm and Al-Manara websites reported "violent clashes" in Benghazi, an opposition stronghold, adding that 35 people had been injured.

Libya Watch said at least four were killed when "security forces and militias of the Revolutionary Committees used live ammunition to disperse a peaceful demonstration by the youth of Al-Baida".

The Revolutionary Committees, the backbone of Kadhafi's regime, have warned they will not allow anti-regime protesters to "plunder the achievements of the people and threaten the safety of citizens and the country's stability".

Videos circulating on the Internet showed a building on fire and dozens of young Libyans apparently gathered in Al-Baida, chanting: "The people want to bring down the regime."

Ramadan Briki, chief editor of the Quryna newspaper in Benghazi, said gunfire rang out in several parts of the city on the third straight day of protests against Kadhafi.

"It is the first time that we have heard shooting in the city," Briki told AFP. "Given the difficulties, we are unable to know if there are fatalities or not."

Lawyers demonstrated in front of a courthouse in Benghazi to demand a constitution for the country.

And in Zentan, southwest of Tripoli, Quryna said demonstrators had set fire to the police station, the city's court, the posts of the internal security forces and the people's guard, and offices of the Revolutionary Committees.

In Tripoli, hundreds attended a peaceful pro-regime rally in Green Square, near the capital's waterfront.

They brandished banners proclaiming "Kadhafi, the father of the people" and "The crowd supports the revolution and its leader," and held up photographs of the strongman.

The veteran leader briefly visited the square to a rapturous welcome early Friday, images aired by state television showed.

The network showed similar pro-government rallies in Benghazi, Sirte and and other cities.

Britain, France and the European Union called for restraint by the authorities in Libya, whose relations with the West have improved sharply over the past decade after years of virtual pariah status.

Rights group Amnesty International denounced the use of excessive force against the opposition.

"The police in Libya, as elsewhere, have a responsibility to ensure public safety but this does not extend to using lethal or excessive force against peaceful protesters," Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

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