Backlash Mounts Against Gadhafi

Posted on Feb 22, 2011

Wikimedia Commons / DefenseImagery.mil

Support for Col. Moammar Gadhafi in the midst of a Libyan uprising, however much he had, was dwindling Tuesday as former members of his own government joined outside critics in condemning violence against protesters as Gadhafi held fast to his position.  —KA

Al-Jazeera:

Nearly 300 people are reported to have been killed in violence in the capital, Tripoli, and across the country as demonstrations entered their second week.

Joining a lengthening list of high-level defections, Abdul-Fatah Younis, the interior minister and an army general, announced on Tuesday that he was now on the side of the uprising and urged the Libyan army to join it.

[...] Ali al-Essawi, who resigned as Libyan ambassador to India, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that fighter jets had been used by the government to bomb civilians.

He said live fire was being used against protesters, and that foreigners had been hired to fight on behalf of the government. He called the violence “a massacre”, and urged the UN to block Libyan airspace in order to “protect the people”.

Earlier, Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, accused Gaddafi of launching a “genocide against the Libyan people”.

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