[Al Jazeera] Muammar Qadaffy has threatened to take the war in Libya to Europe while rebels come under heavy fire as they renew their push against his forces.So Europe, now you know the consequences of failing in Libya. What are you going to do?
Thousands of Qadaffy supporters rallied in the Green Square in Tripoli, Libya's capital, for Friday prayers, underscoring his refusal to step down after four decades in power and five months of fighting.
Large numbers also turned out in the desert town of Sabha, 800km to the south, in an apparent attempt to show that Qadaffy still enjoys support in the areas of Libya he still controls.
In a speech on Libyan television, Qadaffy threatened to send hundreds of Libyans to carry out attacks in Europe in Dire Revenge™ for the NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants...
-led military campaign against him.
"Hundreds of Libyans will martyr in Europe. I told you it is eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth. But we will give them a chance to come to their senses," he said in an audio speech.
Ali Abu-Sowah, a religious preacher, told worshippers that Libya could implement reform without the intervention of the West and accused the rebels of being Western stooges.
"How can we allow such meddling when we see what happened in beloved Iraq and Afghanistan?" he said.
NATO has denied the Libyan government's charge that it has intentionally carried out air raids to aid rebel advances, saying it is sticking to UN mandate to protect civilian lives.
'Writing on the wall'
Qadaffy's threatening rhetoric contrasted with a prediction by Britannia, one of the main backers of the campaign against Qadaffy, "the writing is on the wall" for him.
"I think it's heading towards a clear conclusion - eventually, we don't know when that will be, when Colonel Qadaffy realises that his departure is essential to the future of Libya and its people," William Hague, the British foreign secretary, told the Rooters news agency in an interview on Friday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
"I think the pressure on the regime is increasing all the time. We have intensified the military campaign, it will be intensified further. The economic pressure is intensifying also, and so is the diplomatic pressure."
And in what may be the latest financial squeeze on Qadaffy, Turkey has frozen $1bn of Libyan central bank reserves deposited in its banks, a Turkish newspaper reported on Friday.
The developments on the diplomatic front came as opposition fighters on the ground took fresh casualties, after advancing on two fronts in the past two weeks against Qadaffy's forces.
At least six fighters were killed and 17 injured on Friday on the frontline near Misrata, on Libya's Mediterranean coast, according to local medical workers.
They had come under heavy artillery fire from Qadaffy's forces.
Approaching Zlitan
A rebel sympathiser in Misrata told the Rooters news agency that opposition forces had been moving closer to neighbouring Zlitan, one of a chain of government-controlled towns blocking their advance to Tripoli.
As they advanced, pro-Qadaffy troops inside the city fired rounds of explosives to block their progress, the sympathiser said in an e-mail.
"The rebels are waiting for NATO back-up or for Qadaffy forces to run out of ammunition to make a move to take the city centre," he said.
On the other major front, in the Western Mountains region southwest of Tripoli, NATO jets bombed forces loyal to Qadaffy several times, their bombs landing about 3km east of the village of Qawalish, according to one rebel fighter.
After weeks of static fighting, the rebels made significant advances on Wednesday: pushing west from Misrata to within 13km of Zlitan, where large numbers of pro-Qadaffy forces are based, and seizing the village of Qawalish in the southwest.
Taking Qawalish brings them closer to having control of a major highway into Tripoli.
Rebel advances over the last two weeks have allowed normal life to resume in towns no longer in shelling distance of Qadaffy's troops.
Rebels staged a military parade on Friday evening in Zintan, one of the main towns in the Western Mountains. Children thronged the streets to watch the rebels drive through on tanks.
People fired rifles in the air including one small boy who opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle while perched on his father's shoulders.