Defiant Gadhafi threatens attacks in Europe

A Libyan rebel sol­dier stands guard as Libyan men pray dur­ing Fri­day prayers in the rebel-held Beng­hazi, Libya, Fri­day. The son of Libyan leader Moam­mar Gad­hafi, who like his father is a wanted man under an inter­na­tional arrest war­rant, denies that either of them ordered the killing of civil­ian pro­test­ers in Libya as pros­e­cu­tors charge. (ASSOCIATED PRESS | HASSAN AMMAR)

ADAM SCHRECK

Asso­ci­ated Press

TRIPOLI, Libya — A defi­ant Moam­mar Gad­hafi threat­ened Fri­day to carry out attacks in Europe against “homes, offices, fam­i­lies,” unless NATO halts its cam­paign of airstrikes against his regime in Libya.

The Libyan leader, sought by the Inter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court for bru­tally crush­ing an upris­ing against him, deliv­ered the warn­ing in an audio mes­sage played to thou­sands of sup­port­ers gath­ered in the main square of the cap­i­tal Tripoli.

It was one of the largest pro-government ral­lies in recent weeks, sig­nal­ing that the embat­tled Libyan leader can still muster sig­nif­i­cant sup­port. Gad­hafi addressed the mass gath­er­ing in Green Square, speak­ing from an unknown loca­tion in a likely sign of con­cern over his safety.

Address­ing the West, Gad­hafi said Libyans might take revenge.

“These peo­ple (the Libyans) are able to one day take this bat­tle … to Europe, to tar­get your homes, offices, fam­i­lies, which would become legit­i­mate mil­i­tary tar­gets, like you have tar­geted our homes,” he said.

“We can decide to treat you in a sim­i­lar way,” he said of the Euro­peans. “If we decide to, we are able to move to Europe like locusts, like bees. We advise you to retreat before you are dealt a disaster.”

Friday’s was one of the largest pro-government ral­lies in recent weeks.

It came just four days after the Inter­na­tional Crim­i­nal Court issued arrest war­rants for Gad­hafi, his son Seif al-Islam and Libyan intel­li­gence chief Abdul­lah al-Sanoussi for crimes against human­ity. Inter­na­tional pros­e­cu­tors allege gov­ern­ment troops fired on civil­ian pro­test­ers dur­ing anti-Gadhafi street demon­stra­tions ear­lier this year.

The pop­u­lar upris­ing has since turned into a pro­tracted civil war, with anti-government rebels con­trol­ling much of east­ern Libya and parts of Libya’s west­ern moun­tains. NATO has been bomb­ing government-linked tar­gets since March.

In his speech Fri­day, Gad­hafi denounced the rebels as trai­tors and blamed them for Libya’s trou­bles. He said Libyans who fled to neigh­bor­ing Tunisia are now “work­ing as maids for the Tunisians.”

“What brought you to this stage? The trai­tors,” Gad­hafi said in the audio message.

He urged his sup­port­ers to “march on the west­ern moun­tains” to clear the area of weapons the French gov­ern­ment deliv­ered to the rebels there sev­eral days ago.

(This ver­sion CORRECTS Cor­rects Gadhafi’s first name in first para­graph, adds con­text, links pictures)

Posted by AP News on Jul 1 2011. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.