Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's planes, tanks and artillery are gradually taking their toll on the rebels. They are defiant, but fear a bloody revenge if the West does not intervene.
By Nick Meo, in Benghazi and Richard Spencer in Tripoli 7:59PM GMT 12 Mar 2011
As Muammar Gaddafi's tanks threatened to roll up the coast road towards Benghazi and a dire warning was issued that the dictator would prevail in Libya's civil war, Hassan Hamada was preparing to pick up his gun and fight.
"I am ready to die," he said. "I would fight with our brave teenagers in the streets and so would every other man in this city if Gaddafi comes back here – and so would the women and children as well."
Mr Hamada, like most of the rebels, has no military training but he certainly has a commanding presence that would be useful on the front line; he is Benghazi's most senior judge, aged 67. He turned out for Friday's anti-regime demonstration with the rest of the city, wearing an immaculate suit and tie and mingling with youths in berets and battle fatigues and a squad of chanting revolutionary women in full veils.
Around 10,000 people brought their families to pray together and listen to emotional stories of martyrdom and sacrifice from the battlefield, two hours fast drive to the south. Together they pledged their determination to carry on their fight for freedom no matter what. But in the past week the mood of elation has dimmed among the revolutionaries who bravely threw off the dictator's rule.
The regime has not crumbled in a wave of mutinies and defections as they expected; instead a newly-confident Gaddafi has consolidated his power in the west around the capital Tripoli. His troops have started to push back rebel fighters in the east, ending hopes of a march on Tripoli for now at least, and they have begun using rocket barrages and bombing raids which are killing and wounding a ragtag army of untrained rebel civilians.
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Sunday, March 13th 2011 at 4:51PM
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