TOBRUK, Libya (AFP) – Eastern Libya was in full revolt on Thursday and a town near Tripoli fell to a civilian militia as an insurrection against strongman Moamer Kadhafi intensified, sending expatriates fleeing.
Swathes of the country have fallen to opposition control and others into lawlessness, residents and reporters said, as opponents of veteran leader Moamer Kadhafi vowed to march on the capital and topple him from power.
The European Union said it was seeking naval back-up to rescue up to 6,000 trapped Europeans as thousands scrambled to escape what former colonial ruler Italy said was a "bloodbath" in the oil-rich north African state.
Those managing to get out said Libya was "descending into hell" as European leaders braced for a coming tide of Libyan refugees across the Mediterranean sea.
Police and soldiers, meanwhile, have deserted the town of Zouara, just 120 kilometres (75 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, witnesses among the thousands arriving at the Tunisian border told AFP.
US President Barack Obama described the iron-fisted crackdown as "outrageous", leading an international outcry against a regime that just a few weeks ago was slowly recovering from virtual pariah status in the West.
"There is no going back. Even if we all die, at least children will not have to live with him," a Kadhafi opponent said in eastern Libya.
"Our goal now is Tripoli," said another dissident at a meeting in the town of Al-Baida addressed by defecting generals from Kadhafi's increasingly fractured armed forces. "If Tripoli cannot liberate itself."
In the capital, sustained gunfire was heard in the eastern suburbs during the night. On Thursday morning, the streets were virtually deserted.
In Zouara, towards the Tunisian border, fleeing Egyptian workers said the town was in the control of civilian militias after fierce fighting on Wednesday evening.
"There was lots of shooting between 7 and 10 last night," Egyptian worker Mahmoud Mohammed Ahmed Attia said.
"There are no police or soldiers, it's the people who are holding the town."
Another Egyptian, Mahmoud Ahmeda, 23, said: "The people are divided between opponents and supporters of Kadhafi, but there are more opponents."
But in a show of defiance, state television announced that the Libyan leader was preparing to give a public address in the town of Zawiyah, between Zouara and the capital, two days after he broke cover to urge his supporters to crush the insurrection "house by house" and "inch by inch".
Former minister justice minister Mustapha Abdeljalil, who quit over a death toll now running into the hundreds, predicted that Kadhafi would follow in Adolph Hitler's footsteps by committing suicide, rather than give up power.
"He is going to go like Hitler, he is going to commit suicide," Abdeljalil told Sweden's Expressen referring to the World War II German leader.
As senior generals and Kadhafi comrades from his 1969 coup have switched sides to join the revolt, his opponents appeared in control of Libya's coastal east, from the Egyptian border through the cities of Tobruk and Benghazi, towns made famous as a key battleground during World War II.
Journalists saw regime opponents -- many of them armed -- all along the highway that hugs the Mediterranean coast.
Saudi King Abdullah, mindful of anger building in his own country, decreed an increase in social benefits as he returned to a Middle East rocked by anti-regime uprisings after three months abroad.
Abdullah, the 86-year-old monarch of the world's leading oil exporter, was returning from back surgery in New York and recuperation in Morocco.
Elsewhere in the turbulent region, demonstrators in Yemen and Bahrain defiantly faced down teetering governments.
In Yemen, thousands of demonstrators vowed to keep protesting after government loyalists shot dead two of them, as deep fissures appeared in President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime.
Saleh, a key ally in the US "war on terror", ordered his security forces to offer "full protection" to his opponents and supporters alike, state media said.
Obama, in his first televised comments on the Libya crisis, said: "The suffering and bloodshed is outrageous, and it is unacceptable... This violence must stop."
The French foreign ministry said that the Libyan crackdown could constitute crimes against humanity which might need to be brought before international judges.
Oil prices hit their highest levels in more than two years amid the turmoil in Africa's fourth largest producer.
The cost of a barrel of benchmark Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April reached $119.79 in London before falling back slightly.
Italy's ENI, the biggest foreign energy major in Libya, has had to cut its production by more than 50 percent because of the violence, chief executive Paolo Scaroni said.
As international condemnation rained down on Kadhafi, European leaders braced for a coming tide of Libyan refugees across the Mediterranean sea.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters that he feared 300,000 Libyans would attempt to flee to Europe.
Briton Helena Sheehan, who was among those on an emergency repatriation flight on Thursday said: "Libya is descending into hell... There's just thousands and thousands of people trying to get out."
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