BENGHAZI, Libya — Forces loyal to Moammar Khadafy carried out airstrikes and skirmished with foes in parts of Libya on Monday, but neither side appeared to gain ground, according to accounts of the fighting from residents and officials allied with the opposition.
In a seeming standoff for control of the North African country, paramilitary groups allied with Khadafy were unable to recapture any of the fallen cities or territory, despite episodic attacks that included the use of helicopters and airplanes, said residents and opposition officials. The strikes demonstrated that the regime remained able to fight back with lethal weaponry.
The loosely organized opposition has so far been unable to push into Khadafy’s stronghold of Trip oli and achieve its ultimate goal of ousting him from power.
Opposition groups have asked the international community to keep any aircraft still under Khadafy’s control from flying or firing on them.
In what amounted to his first news conference since protests broke out in the country, Khadafy held court with reporters from ABC, the BBC and London’s Sunday Times — a performance U.S. officials promptly labeled “delusional.”
He said he could not step down from power because, under Libya’s peculiar “stateless” form of socialism, he is not a president or king. He also asserted that there have been no demonstrations against him in Tripoli, the capital, ABC News reported Monday.
“My people love me,” ABC’s Christiane Amanpour quoted Khadafy as saying. “They would die for me.”
She said Khadafy also denied ever using force against citizens, accused al-Qaeda of encouraging young people to seize arms from military installations and said he felt betrayed by the United States.
“I’m surprised that we have an alliance with the West to fight al-Qaeda, and now that we are fighting terrorists, they have abandoned us,” he said. “Perhaps they want to occupy Libya.”
With opposition groups in control of much of Libya’s coast and edging close to Tripoli, fighting broke out Monday in Misurata, 125 miles east of Tripoli, when residents fired at a helicopter that was trying to destroy the antenna of a local radio station controlled by the opposition.
Though Misurata was overrun by protesters Thursday, Khadafy loyalists are still holding out at an air base and a barracks on the edge of town. There are daily attacks and counterattacks between the two sides, the residents say.
On Monday night, two people were killed and one injured by sniper fire coming from the barracks, according to hospital officials, bringing to 34 the number killed in recent days. More than 300 have been wounded, the officials said.
A helicopter also attacked a military weapons depot Monday in Heniya, just outside Ajdabiya, a town about 100 miles south of Benghazi, said Idriss Sharif, an adviser to a committee that has come together to manage Benghazi.
A fighter pilot from the air-force base in Benghazi, an opposition stronghold 600 miles east of the capital, said weapons and ammunition have been moved from storage units in case of a strike on the base. Over the past few days, the air force here has been setting up anti-aircraft weapons to protect against airstrikes on the town, the center of resistance against Khadafy’s regime.
At 4 p.m. Monday, an airstrike hit just south of the airport, slamming into a weapons depot.
