Rebels close in,Gaddafi strikes back

Libya: Gaddafi blames violence on hallucinogens,Osama bin Laden.

Thousands of mercenary and irregular forces struck back at a tightening circle of rebellions around the capital,Tripoli,on Thursday,trying to hold off an uprising against the 40-year rule of Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi,who blamed the violence on hallucinogenic drugs and Osama bin Laden.

The fighting on Thursday centered in Zawiya,a gateway city to the capital,just 30 miles west of Tripoli,where government opponents had briefly claimed victory. Gaddafis forces a mixture of special brigades and African mercenaries fought back,blasting a mosque that had been used as a refuge by protesters,a witness said.

Fighting intensified in other cities near Tripoli Misurata,130 miles east,and Sabratha,about 50 miles west. There were also reports that Zuara,75 miles west of the capital,had fallen to anti-government militias.

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To the east,half of Libyas 1,000-mile Mediterranean coast appeared to have fallen to opposition forces.

Gaddafi,speaking in an impassioned 30 minute phone call to a Libyan TV station,appeared particularly incensed by the revolt in Zawiya,close as it was to the capital. In a rambling discourse,he blamed the uprising on the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden,saying he had drugged the people,giving them hallucinogenic pills in their coffee with milk,like Nescafe.

Those people who took your sons away from you and gave them drugs and said let them die are launching a campaign over cellphones against your sons,telling them not to obey their fathers and mothers,and they are destroying their country, he said.

The choice of peace or war,he said,belongs to the people of Zawiya a town of 1,000 martyrs,as he called it the focus of the thousands of mercenaries and irregular security forces he called back to reinforce his stronghold in the capital on Wednesday. KAREEM FAHIM & DAVID D KIRKPATRICK