Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi ordered his forces on Tuesday to crush an uprising that has rocked his 41-year rule, warning armed protesters they will be executed and vowing to fight to his last.
In a defiant, sometimes rambling speech on state television, Gaddafi vowed to remain in Libya as head of its revolution, saying he would die as a martyr in the land of his ancestors and fight to the "last drop" of his blood.
Proclaiming the support of the people, Gaddafi ordered the army and police to crush the popular uprising against his iron-fisted rule that has already left hundreds dead in the past eight days.
Ordering protesters to surrender their weapons immediately, saying there would be a "slaughter" otherwise, he threatened to purge Libya "house by house" and "inch by inch".
And he called on the population to take to the streets in a show of support for his regime on Wednesday.
In a live, unscripted speech, the 68-year-old former army colonel said, "Muammar Gaddafi is the leader of a revolution; Muammar Gaddafi has no official position in order for him to resign. He is the leader of the revolution forever."
"This is my country, my country," he shouted, in a roughly 75-minute speech consisting of short, angry bursts of words, which he punctuated by shaking his fist or pointing his finger.
Standing against the backdrop of his house, part of which has been deliberately left unrepaired since it was bombed by US warplanes in 1986, Gaddafi said he would "die a martyr in the land of my ancestors" and "will fight to the last drop of my blood".
In retaliation for a bomb in a Berlin night club that killed two Americans, then US president Ronald Reagan ordered air strikes on Libyan military facilities, residential areas of Tripoli and Benghazi and Gaddafi's house.
Those attacks killed 101 people, including Gaddafi's adopted daughter.
Apparently addressing today's anti-regime protesters, he asked rhetorically: "When they bombed my house and my children, where were you?"
"You were with America," he answered.
Despite widespread reports that army, police and militias had killed unarmed demonstrators indiscriminately over the past week, Gaddafi said "we have not yet used force".
However, he said, "If the situation worsens we will use it in line with international law and Libya's constitution.
'Capture the rats'
"The Libyan people are with me," he said, calling on them to demonstrate from Wednesday. "Capture the rats," he said of anti-regime demonstrators. "Go out of your homes and storm them" wherever they are.
Dressed in a matching light-brown robe, scarf and turban, and wearing glasses, Gaddafi denied that the victims of fighting that has swept the country were young people.
"Those killed were from the police and the army; they were not youths," he said, adding that there was a "small sick group" that "gives drugs to these youths".
He also said that, as of Tuesday night "we will form committees and we will take the drugs from you".
Reading from the penal code, he said "any Libyan who carries arms against Libyans will be punished by death".
Gaddafi said protesters who had apparently seized control of some cities and towns deserve to be punished in line with Libyan laws "because they took up arms against the nation".
"Surrender the weapons, free the prisoners ... and restore normal life to ports and airports," he said.
"No one in his right might can allow the country to be torn apart and to fall into the hands of madmen."
Over the weekend, Gaddafi's son Seif al-Islam Gaddafi went on television and warned against dangers of civil war and a break-up of the country.
Libya, which was only forged into a single country under Italian colonial rule in the 1930s, consists of three regions - Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan - and has more of a tribal than a national consciousness.
Gaddafi threatened tough action in line with what he said had been done against insurgents in Moscow and Iraq and freedom protesters in Beijing.
"The Russian president brought tanks and bombed the Duma with the MPs inside until they snuffed the rats out, and the West did not object but told him 'you are acting in accordance with the law'.
"Students in Beijing protested for days near a Coca Cola sign ... Then the tanks came and crushed them."
"America bombed Fallujah by air under the pretext that it was fighting terrorism."
Gaddafi ended his speech by saying: "It is high time for the march, for working, for victory. There is no going back, only forward, forward, forward.
"Revolution. Revolution. Revolution" were his last words before he banged his fist on a table in front of him and walked away, as several loyalists kissed his hand.
State television then began broadcasting footage of Gaddafi supporters cheering and waving flags and banners in Tripoli's Green Square.
