As Violence Engulfs Libya, Yemen, Bahrain Qaddafi Promises War
Extremism may spread in the Middle East, causing Arab states to “fall to pieces,” following a wave of discontent in the region.
Look at the situation in the Middle East and the Arab world. It is quite possible that complicated events will take place including fanatics coming to power. It will mean fires for decades and a further spread of extremism.
Uprisings have toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, with demonstrations spreading to Bahrain, Yemen, Iran and Algeria. Violence intensified in Libya yesterday as the government attacked protesters and rebels claimed control of the second- biggest city, Benghazi.
Toward the end of a rambling and apparently off-the-cuff speech late on Sunday, Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, whose father has ruled Libya for 42 years, took an abrupt departure from the script of blame-shifting and promise-making that the presidents of Egypt and Tunisia had followed days before their forced resignations. Rather than offering appeasement or excuses, he pledged, in language as apocalyptic as it was frighteningly believable, to go to war against the protesters.
"We will not lose one inch of this land," he warned. "We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet." His father, he said is "leading the battle" and will hold on to power "by any means necessary." He echoed the same vague, hollow promises made by Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali, adding, in the dramatic and menacing flair his father has honed for decades, a threat. "We will tomorrow create a new Libya. We can agree on a new national anthem, new flag, new Libya. Or be prepared for civil war."
What began in Libya as a national protest movement quickly escalated in the country's east, where Qaddafi's hold is weaker, to all-out battle. After days of bloody fighting, the protesters appear to have ousted government forces entirely and seized control of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city. Security forces have consolidated in the capital, Tripoli, where, after days of relative calm due to the heavy police presence and undeclared state of martial law, protesters are taking to the streets en mass. Qaddafi's show of force, silently backed by a long history of unflinching crackdowns, does not look to have deterred the increasingly enraged demonstrators. The regime as well as the protesters are rapidly escalating the fighting in Tripoli, which both sides appear to believe will be the site of a decisive battle for Libya.
Already, fragmentary but credible reports from Tripoli claim that security forces are firing indiscriminately into the crowds gathering in Green Square. Terrified eyewitnesses say that Toyota Land Cruisers carrying armed men, believed to be mercenaries from Sub-Saharan Africa, are strafing protesters in drive-by shootings. Military planes are circling over the city in an implicit threat of what has become the greatest immediate fear in Libya: that Qaddafi will order his air force to massacre civilians. Early reports that the planes have made strafing runs on the crowd may be false; such an attack would be difficult to the point of unfeasible in a city as dense as Tripoli, and protesters may simply be hearing ground-based machine gun fire. On Monday afternoon, at least two Libyan jet fighters requested emergency landing at Malta; Al Jazeera reports the pilots are requesting to defect after refusing orders to bomb protesters in Benghazi. These early reports have yet to be confirmed and may turn out to be false. But whether or not the air force attacks, what seems significant is that many protesters believe it could or that it already has, yet press on anyway in what they fully expect to be all-out war with the regime.
"We will not lose one inch of this land," he warned. "We will flight to the last man and woman and bullet." His father, he said is "leading the battle" and will hold on to power "by any means necessary." He echoed the same vague, hollow promises made by Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali, adding, in the dramatic and menacing flair his father has honed for decades, a threat. "We will tomorrow create a new Libya. We can agree on a new national anthem, new flag, new Libya. Or be prepared for civil war."
What began in Libya as a national protest movement quickly escalated in the country's east, where Qaddafi's hold is weaker, to all-out battle. After days of bloody fighting, the protesters appear to have ousted government forces entirely and seized control of Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city. Security forces have consolidated in the capital, Tripoli, where, after days of relative calm due to the heavy police presence and undeclared state of martial law, protesters are taking to the streets en mass. Qaddafi's show of force, silently backed by a long history of unflinching crackdowns, does not look to have deterred the increasingly enraged demonstrators. The regime as well as the protesters are rapidly escalating the fighting in Tripoli, which both sides appear to believe will be the site of a decisive battle for Libya.
Already, fragmentary but credible reports from Tripoli claim that security forces are firing indiscriminately into the crowds gathering in Green Square. Terrified eyewitnesses say that Toyota Land Cruisers carrying armed men, believed to be mercenaries from Sub-Saharan Africa, are strafing protesters in drive-by shootings. Military planes are circling over the city in an implicit threat of what has become the greatest immediate fear in Libya: that Qaddafi will order his air force to massacre civilians. Early reports that the planes have made strafing runs on the crowd may be false; such an attack would be difficult to the point of unfeasible in a city as dense as Tripoli, and protesters may simply be hearing ground-based machine gun fire. On Monday afternoon, at least two Libyan jet fighters requested emergency landing at Malta; Al Jazeera reports the pilots are requesting to defect after refusing orders to bomb protesters in Benghazi. These early reports have yet to be confirmed and may turn out to be false. But whether or not the air force attacks, what seems significant is that many protesters believe it could or that it already has, yet press on anyway in what they fully expect to be all-out war with the regime.
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