28 February 2011 VOA News Libyan anti-government protesters in the western city of Zawiya awaited a counter-attack by forces loyal to leader Moammar Gadhafi Monday, as eastern rebels declared a provisional government and allowed oil shipments to resume from territory under their control.
Residents in Zawiya – some 50 kilometers west of the capital, Tripoli – said late Sunday that about 2,000 pro-Gadhafi troops had surrounded the city.
Western journalists in Zawiya found the city firmly in rebel hands, with defecting military officers displaying army tanks and anti-aircraft guns mounted on pickup trucks ready for the expected attack. Journalists reported seeing hundreds of people gathered and chanting anti-Gadhafi slogans as well as extensive damage from recent fighting. A key industrial city close to a port and refineries, Zawiya is a staging post for one of Libya's biggest oil and gas pipelines.
Meanwhile, a Libyan official representing the Arabian Gulf Oil Company, the country's largest producer and the only one based in the opposition-controlled east, said the company resumed oil shipments Sunday, loading two tankers at a port in Tobruk.
Hassan Bulifa, who sits on Arabian Gulf's management committee, said he expects one of the tankers to depart Tobruk late Sunday carrying 700,000 barrels of oil. He said the ships – bound for Austria and China – represent the company's first shipments since February 10.
The New York Times quotes Bulifa as saying the rebels now control at least 80 percent of the country's oil assets, and that his company – based in the opposition-held city of Benghazi – is cooperating with them.
These developments came as Libyan anti-government protest leaders formed a “national council” in eastern cities seized from Mr. Gadhafi.
A spokesman for the provisional body, known as the National Libyan Council, said the group would be entirely civilian run and that rebel military officers would have separate committees to manage defense of the territory they now hold. Abdul-Hafidh Gogha, a prominent human rights lawyer, Sunday ruled out negotiations with Mr. Gadhafi's regime, saying the council serves as the face of the revolution but is not an interim government. He said the council would be based in Benghazi until Tripoli is freed from the Libyan leader's grip.
Gogha also refuted a claim by former Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil a day earlier to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television that he would lead an interim government. He characterized Jalil's role in the council as “a consultant.”
Jalil, who resigned during the first days of the uprising, had said the transitional body would rule for “no more than three months” to prepare for fair elections.
Mr. Gadhafi dismissed his opponents Sunday, describing them as only a small group surrounded by his forces. In a statement made by telephone to Serbia's Pink television station, he also condemned sanctions imposed on Libya Saturday by the U.N. Security Council.
Mr. Gadhafi remains in control of Tripoli, but has seen opposition forces take control of other cities in western Libya and the entire east of the country since the uprising against his 42-year rule began earlier this month.
In what appeared to be an effort to appease protesting civilians, the state-owned Al-Jamahiriya television station based in Tripoli said Sunday the government began handing out $400 grants to Libyan families to “redistribute” the country's oil wealth.
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