Post date: Feb 25, 2011 11:33:43 PM
Thousands of people desperate to flee Libya are holed up outside the entrance to Tripoli Airport.
TRIPOLI, LIBYA (FEBRUARY 25, 2011) REUTERS - Thousands of people remained massed outside Tripoli Airport on Friday (February 25) as chaos continues to engulf the Libyan capital.
Many said they had been waiting in the street for three days.
Piles of rubbish littered the streets near the airport entrance. Some have pitched makeshift tents, while others laid in the cold.Tensions are running high at the airport as thousands of people try to flee the country.
While foreign governments and oil companies are attempting to organise evacuations, there are many frustrated people who have been left to fend for themselves.
Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi vowed to "crush any enemy" on Friday, addressing a crowd of supporters in Tripoli as Libya's popular uprising closed in around him.
The United States, whose calls for restraint have fallen on deaf ears, said it was preparing sanctions against Gaddafi and was not ruling out military action.
The U.N. Security Council also drew up sanctions including an arms embargo, travel bans and freezing top officials' assets, and threatened Libyan leaders with indictments for crimes against humanity.
But the international community has struggled to keep up with the pace of protests which have already swept away the authoritarian rulers of Egypt and Tunisia this year.
Gaddafi's own people seemed close to forcing him from power. A string of other towns were reported to have fallen to the opposition, although Gaddafi retained the defiance he has often displayed against the West over more than four decades.
Residents said parts of Tripoli, apparently the last major stronghold of the man who took over Libya in a 1969 coup, were already beyond his control.
Al Jazeera television said two people had been killed and several wounded by government forces in heavy shooting in several districts. Another channel, Al Arabiya, said seven people had been killed.
Washington, having evacuated Americans from Libya, said it was closing down its embassy. Gaddafi, once branded a "mad dog" for backing global militants, had recently found a cautious welcome in the West, which has sought access to its oil.