AFP - The Libyan insurgents, masters of the East, continued to rise Friday and claimed to have taken control of a strategic oil city, while police faced opposition in the streets of Tripoli.
A Libyan government source said that the West was "completely" under the control of the regime, but the east remained "problematic".
The insurgents said on Friday evening had taken control of Ras Lanuf, over 300 km south-west of Benghazi, a stronghold of the insurgency, after violent clashes with forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Ras Lanuf is an oil port, just a hundred miles of Sirte, the hometown and stronghold of Colonel Gaddafi, who has faced for more than two weeks to an unprecedented uprising since coming to power nearly 42 years ago.
In Ras Lanuf, a journalist from AFP saw the rebels positioned outside of the complex operations of oil Harouge, military barracks and police station, but it was not possible to confirm immediately whether the rebels controlled the entire residential areas.
"We took their barracks. The residential area is combed through" to find elements of the pro-Gaddafi, said a rebel fighters, Saleh Sultan.
"They fled like rabbits.When we started to move, they attacked us with Grad missiles and heavy weapons. But we kept going because we know that these are rats, "said another veteran, Abdelsalam.
A doctor reported "many casualties" in Ras Lanuf.
However, Zawiyah, about sixty miles west of Tripoli, could have been taken over by forces loyal to the Libyan regime. Fighting between the army have regular insurgents, making "many" casualties.
But a political activist Zawiyah, Mohammad Qasim, interviewed live on the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera, denied the fall of the city, while acknowledging that she was surrounded.
Sunday, anti-Gaddafi demonstrators took control of Zawiyah where they had demonstrated in their thousands against the regime during a press visit organized by the authorities. Fighting had taken place Feb. 24 in the city, leaving over 35 dead, according to the Libyan League for Human Rights.
Appeals were launched in Tripoli to take advantage of the Friday prayer and be heard in the capital, where the opposition has already tried last week to raise in several neighborhoods.
Near rebel Tajoura in the east of the capital, clashes between the forces of order to a hundred protesters chanting slogans against the regime.The police used tear gas to disperse the protesters, witnesses said.
On the Green Square, in downtown, hundreds of pro-Gaddafi expressed their support for the "Guide of the Revolution," an AFP journalist. Limited clashes took place between small groups of demonstrators pro and anti-Gaddafi nearby, said a witness.
The 18th day of revolt against the Libyan leader, the insurgents advancing along the coast after two days of fierce fighting, including at Brega.
"The plan is to move slowly in their direction to push them back. We do not want to fight, we want to impose psychological pressure (...).But if we must kill to win this battle, we will do, "he told AFP Colonel Bashir Abdelkader.
A little farther east, Captain al-Chouaib Akaki, who joined the opposition camp, worried at the idea of fighting to come, inevitably fratricide.
"We try to limit losses on both sides. In Libya, we are all parents. We are a nation of tribes. We all have family in Sirte," Colonel Gaddafi's stronghold situated between Tripoli and Benghazi, he said .
The opposition was also expressed in Benghazi to demand the departure of Colonel Gaddafi.Some 5,000 Libyans were requested by the court after a sermon in which the imam has promised that "victory is near".
In Washington, U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the world was "disgusted" by the violence against the Libyans, warning that the United States were examining "all (their) options" in this crisis.
According to the Libyan League for Human Rights, the repression has already 6,000 dead.
