The Libyan protests, and the violence resulting from the Government response to them, are continuing to spread across Libya. Human Rights Watch put the number of dead at 233, and now come reports that several senior officials - including the justice minister - have quit their posts after security forces fired on the Tripoli protesters.
French news agency AFP is now reporting that the state-run television station has been "sacked" by protesters and that the offices of the People's Committees (the mainstay of the Gaddafi regime) have been set on fire.
Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, went on TV to promise a series of reforms after bloody protests against his father's rule reached the capital, Tripoli. In the televised address, Saif al-Islam conceded that protesters had taken over eastern cities of al-Bayda and Benghazi. But the leader's son also hit out at those he claimed were behind the violence. He said protests against his father's rule, which have been concentrated in the east of the country, threatened to sink Libya into civil war and split the country up into several small states. Despite reliable reports that say otherwise, Seif al-Islam said his father is still in the country and backed by the army. "We will fight to the last minute, until the last bullet." He said his father was leading the fight, although he added that some military bases, tanks and weapons had been seized.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior analyst, termed Seif al-Islam's speech as desperate. "It sounded like a desperate speech by a desperate son of a dictator who's trying to use blackmail on the Libyan people by threatening that he could turn the country into a bloodbath.
Saif al-Islam's address followed reports that security forces had shot dead scores of protesters in Benghazi, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause. Protests have also reportedly broken out in other cities, including Bayda, Derna, Tobruk and Misrata.
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