Libyan protests spread to capital after Gaddafi uses African mercenaries to quell uprising

Protests that erupted in the Libyan city of Benghazi have spread to the capital, after a vicious military crackdown that opposition supporters are claiming may have killed up to 200.

Despite the news blackout, yesterday reports of assorted incidents filtered out from the country, often over the phone to news media. Libyans accused their leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of using mercenaries from Chad to attack protesters, deploy sniper teams firing indiscriminately on protesters, and even of firing an anti-aircraft missile to disperse a crowd. A cleric told the BBC he had seen a tank crush a car containing two passengers, another said African mercenaries has shot and killed a two year-old boy.

Last night Gaddafi’s son Saif Gaddafi appeared on state television and warned that the overthrow of the 42 year regime could lead to civil war. At least one military battalion has sided with the demonstrators following the Benghazi crackdown.

The BBC’s Middle East correspondent Jon Leyne described Saif Gaddafi’s rambling speech as “one of the strangest political speeches I think I’ve ever sat through. He was completely and utterly detached from the reality of what is going on in his country.”

“To put it bluntly, most Libyans will just treat it as gibberish – it was completely meaningless to them. The idea that they’re somehow going to sit down and have a national dialogue with a government that’s brought in foreign mercenaries to shoot at them is laughable.”