Global

Heavy fighting in town near Tripoli - witnesses



    By Michael Georgy

    RAS JDIR, Tunisia (Reuters) - Opponents of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have occupied the centre of a town near the capital and are laying home-made traps to fend off counter-attacks by pro-Gaddafi forces, a witness said.

    Other witnesses reported heavy gunfire and chaotic scenes in the town of Zawiyah, which is about 50 km (30 miles) west of the Libyan capital and appeared to have become the country's biggest flashpoint for fighting.

    Sharif Abdeen, a 25-year-old Egyptian who left Zawiyah on Thursday, said several hundred civilian opponents of Gaddafi were putting doors with nails sticking out of them in the street to try to sabotage army vehicles.

    Around the town, he and other witnesses said, there was a heavy security force presence, including dozens of army jeeps and soldiers with rocket-propelled grenades.

    "Everyone is so scared that people send each other SMSs and say: 'If anyone asks you if you are pro-Gaddafi or against him, do not say anything or you could get killed'," Abdeen told Reuters after crossing the border into Tunisia.

    Two other people who crossed into Tunisia after travelling through Zawiyah said there were people in civilian clothes running through the streets with guns, and the sound of heavy gunfire could be heard.

    Zawiyah, on the Mediterranean coast, is on the main highway between the Tunisian border and the Libyan capital and is also the site of an oil terminal.

    "I heard heavy gunfire in Zawiyah and people were running around in the streets with guns," said Hussein Ibrahim, an Egyptian carpenter, after crossing into Tunisia.

    "Lots of people in civilian clothes are firing at each other. They seem to be pro-Gaddafi people and their enemies," said Mohamed Jaber, who also passed through Zawiyah on his way to Tunisia on Thursday.

    "It is chaotic there. There are people with guns and swords," he said.

    A Tripoli resident, who did not want to be identified, said protesters gathered in the Zawiyah central square on Thursday morning when they were attacked by a unit of a paramilitary force led by one of Gaddafi's sons, Khamis.

    "Between 16 and 20 demonstrators were killed on sight, and more than 100 were injured, some of them seriously, and the number of casualties is expected to rise," the resident told Reuters. The death toll could not be verified.

    (Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Andrew Roche)