Libya protests: Gaddafi says Bin Laden to blame (in phone interview to state TV)

[maddezmom]

Source: BBC

Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi has told state TV that Osama Bin Laden and his followers are to blame for the protests wracking his country.

In a phone call from the town of al-Zawiya played live on TV, Col Gaddafi said young people were being duped with drugs and alcohol to take part in "destruction and sabotage".

Col Gaddafi is battling to shore up control of Tripoli and western areas.

Protesters have been consolidating gains in cities in the east.

'This is your country'

The telephone call was said to be an address to the people of al-Zawiya, 50km (30 miles) west of the capital, where there has been renewed gunfire reported in the streets.



Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12570279

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Libya calls western journalists 'al-Qaida collaborators'

Journalists from the BBC, CNN and other international media in Libya are being considered "al-Qaida collaborators" by the country's government, the US state department said on Thursday.


Senior Libyan officials said journalists who had entered the country "illegally" would be considered terrorist sympathisers and "risked immediate arrest".


Reporters from the Guardian and ITV News are among dozens of journalists to have entered Libya for the first time in four decades yesterday. Most journalists have entered the embattled country through its eastern border with Egypt, which is reportedly "liberated" from Muammar Gaddafi's regime.


Libya has allowed some members of CNN, BBC Arabic and al-Arabiya to remain in the country, despite a longstanding ban on international media.

more:http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/24/libya-journalists-al-qaida