Muammar Qaddafi launched a land and air offensive to retake territory in Libya's east at dawn on Wednesday, sparking a rebel call for foreign air strikes on African mercenaries they said were helping him stay in power. The veteran ruler twinned the attack with a fiery propaganda broadside against the rebels, playing on both nationalist opinion and Western jitters by saying much blood would be shed in "another Vietnam" if foreign powers intervened in the crisis.
"We will enter a bloody war and thousands and thousands of Libyans will die if the United States enters or Nato enters," Qaddafi told Tripoli supporters at a gathering televised live. "We are ready to hand out weapons to a million, or 2 million or 3 million, and another Vietnam will begin. It doesn't matter to us. We no longer care about anything."
On the battlefield, government troops briefly captured Brega, an oil export terminal, before being driven back by rebels who have held the town 800 km (500 miles) east of Tripoli for about a week, rebel officers said, adding they were ready to move westwards against Qaddafi's forces if he refused to quit.
Further bombing raids near the oil terminals were carried out in the afternoon. Estimates of the death toll during the day ranged between five and 14. There has been talk among the international community of the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, but on Wednesday US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said such a move would first require an attack to cripple Libyan air defences.
"One of our biggest concerns is Libya descending into chaos and becoming a giant Somalia," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US lawmakers. Qaddafi, who once said ballot box democracy was for donkeys, told the gathering in Tripoli the world did not understand he had given power to the people long ago. "We put our fingers in the eyes of those who doubt that Libya is ruled by anyone other than its people," he said, referring to his system of "direct democracy" launched at a meeting attended by visiting Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 1977.
Referring to an unprecedented two-week-old popular uprising against his rule, Qaddafi also called for the United Nations and Nato to probe what had happened in Libya, and said he saw a conspiracy to colonise Libya and seize its oil. A Tripoli resident and Qaddafi opponent, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters afterwards: "Qaddafi will hang on for a while. It's not going to be easy for an unarmed crowd to face highly armed forces eager to shoot their own people."
The assault on Brega appeared to be the most significant military operation by Qaddafi since the uprising erupted in mid-February and set off a confrontation that Washington says could descend into a long civil war unless Qaddafi steps down. Witnesses said the attack was backed by heavy weapons and air strikes. One of the witnesses said Qaddafi's forces were 2-3 km from the city centre and had 300-350 rebels pinned down at an oil industry airport on the city outskirts.
Hisham Mohammed, a 33-year-old mechanic on the side of the rebels, was defiant. "I'm going to Brega to help our brothers there. I'm washed, I've prayed, and I'm ready to go to God," he told Reuters. Analysts cautioned against drawing firm conclusions from fast moving events in a situation of erratic communications. "The attack reinforces the idea that the government is capable of projecting power far into the east," said Shashank Joshi, an analyst at Britain's Royal United Services Institute.
"But we should keep in mind that both the government and the rebels are trying to spin an image of momentum." In the opposition bastion of Benghazi, a rebel National Libyan Council called for UN-backed air strikes on African mercenaries it said Qaddafi was using against his own people.
"We call for specific attacks on strongholds of these mercenaries," said council spokesman Hafiz Ghoga. "The presence of any foreign forces on Libyan soil is strongly opposed. There is a big difference between this and strategic air strikes."
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