Gadhafi forces strike, but rebels gain

BENGHAZI, Libya - Foreign mercenaries and Libyan militiamen loyal to Moammar Gadhafi Thursday tried to roll back the uprising against his rule that has advanced closer to his stronghold in Tripoli, attacking two nearby cities in battles that killed at least 17 people. But rebels made new gains, seizing a military air base, as Gadhafi blamed Osama bin Laden for the upheaval.

The worse bloodshed was in Zawiya, 30 miles west of the capital, Tripoli. An army unit loyal to Gadhafi opened fire with automatic weapons on a mosque where residents have been holding a sit-in to support protesters in the capital, a witness said.

The troops blasted the mosque's minaret with an anti-aircraft gun. A doctor at a field clinic set up at the mosque said he saw the bodies of 10 dead, shot in the head and chest, as well as around 150 wounded. A Libyan news website, Qureyna, put the death toll at 23 and said many of the wounded could not reach hospitals because of shooting by "security forces and mercenaries."

A day earlier, an envoy from Gadhafi had come to the city from Tripoli and warned the protesters: "Either leave or you will see a massacre," the witness said. On Tuesday night Gadhafi himself called on his supporters to hunt down opponents in their homes.

Zawiya, a key city close to an oil port and refineries, is the nearest population center to Tripoli to fall into the hands of the anti-Gadhafi rebellion that began Feb. 15. Hundreds have died in the unrest.

Most of the eastern half of Libya has already broken away, and diplomats, ministers and even a high-ranking cousin have abandoned Gadhafi, who has ruled Libya for 41 years. He is still believed to be firmly in control only of the capital, some towns around it, the far desert south and parts of Libya's sparsely populated center.

Gadhafi's crackdown has been the harshest by any Arab leader in the wave of protests that has swept the Middle East the past month, toppling the presidents of Libya's neighbors - Egypt and Tunisia. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has put the death toll in Libya at nearly 300, according to a partial count. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said estimates of some 1,000 people killed were "credible."

Hours after the attack in Zawiya, Gadhafi called in to state TV and in a rambling speech expressed condolences for the dead but then angrily scolded the city's residents for siding with the uprising.