Libyan troops attempt to put down unrest in east

Opposition activists said protesters were fighting troops for control of the nearby town of Al Bayda, scene of some of the worst violence over the past two days, where townspeople said they were burying 14 people who were killed in earlier clashes.

Residents said that by evening the streets were calm but there were conflicting accounts about whether opposition activists or security forces were in control of the town.

Protests fired by uprisings in Tunis and Egypt have produced unprecedented scenes in a country tightly controlled by Gaddafi. By contrast to Egypt, where protests forced President Hosni Mubarak from power, international media access is limited.

The privately-owned Quryna newspaper said that in Benghazi, focal point of demonstrations against Gaddafi, thousands of residents gathered for the funeral processions of the 14 protesters killed in clashes there. Thousands more gathered in front of Benghazi court building.

"The (funeral) procession included thousands of citizens, and thousands of people in front of the Benghazi court said prayers for the victims," said the paper, which is based in Benghazi.

The New York-based rights group Human Rights Watch said that according to its sources inside Libya, security forces had killed at least 24 people over the past two days. Exile groups have given much higher tolls which could not be confirmed.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about reports of violence from Bahrain, a close U.S. ally, Libya and Yemen and urged governments to show restraint in dealing with protesters.

Quryna newspaper said security forces overnight fired live bullets at protesters, killing 14 of them. It published photographs of several people lying on hospital stretchers with bloodstained bandages.

Two Swiss-based exile groups said anti-government forces, joined by defecting police, had been battling with security forces for control of the town of Al Bayda, 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Benghazi.

Ashour Shamis, a London-based Libyan journalist, said protesters had stormed Benghazi's Kuwafiyah prison on Friday and freed dozens of political prisoners. Quryna said 1,000 prisoners had escaped and 150 had been recaptured.

CALM IN TRIPOLI

The capital Tripoli has been calmer, with Gaddafi supporters staging demonstrations of their own. The leader appeared in the early hours of Friday briefly at Green Square in the centre of Tripoli, surrounded by crowds of supporters. He did not speak.

A sermon at Friday prayers in Tripoli, broadcast on state television, urged people to ignore reports in foreign media "which doesn't want our country to be peaceful, which ... is the aim of Zionism and imperialism, to divide our country."

Gaddafi's opponents, using social media networks Facebook and Twitter, had called for new protests after Friday prayers, when most Libyan men visit the mosque.

Text messages sent to mobile phone subscribers thanked people who ignored calls to join protests. "We congratulate our towns which understood that interfering with national unity threatens the future of generations," it said.

Two people in Benghazi, which is about 1,000 km east of Tripoli, told Reuters early in the day that Saadi Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader and ex-professional soccer player in Italy, had taken over command of the city.

Libya, holder of the Arab League's rotating presidency, said it was postponing a summit planned for Iraq in March, citing "circumstances in the Arab world." But the league's secretariat said it had received no formal notification.

Libya-watchers say the situation is different from Egypt, because Gaddafi has oil cash to smooth over social problems. Gaddafi is respected in much of the country, though support for him is weaker in the Cyrenaica region around Benghazi.

"For sure there is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist who is based in Britain but is currently in Tripoli. "I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said by telephone from the Libyan capital.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Ould Ahmed in Algiers, William Maclean in London and Geneva bureau; writing by Christian Lowe; editing by Ralph Boulton)