Unrest Reported to Spread to Libyan City of Benghazi

PARIS — The wave of turmoil and protests sweeping the Middle East appeared on Wednesday to have reached Libya, ruled for four decades by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, according to news reports.

The eruption of violence in Libya’s second city Benghazi was not reported in the state-run media which said rallies would be held Wednesday in support of Colonel Qaddafi — a tactic reflecting those used in Egypt and Yemen where pro-government demonstrators have clashed with their adversaries since the tumult began.

Quryna, a privately owned newspaper in Benghazi, said a crowd armed with gasoline bombs and rocks protested outside a government office to demand the release of a human rights activist, Reuters reported. The demonstrators, numbering at least several hundred and possibly more, went to the central Shajara Square and clashed with police.

The fighting coincided with news reports of demonstrators massing for a third successive day on the easternmost rim of the Arab world in the Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain.

The eruption in Libya was highly unusual since a pervasive security apparatus keeps dissent in check and protects Col. Qaddafi against perceived foes, some of them Islamists. Reuters quoted a Benghazi resident as saying the protesters were led by relatives of prisoners in the Abu Salim jail in Tripoli where political detainees are held. The prison is notorious for a massacre of more than 1,000 inmates in June 1996.

Libyan state television showed images of a pro-Qaddafi rally in Tripoli, the capital, where demonstrators chanted slogans critical of the Doha-based Al Jazeera satellite broadcaster that provided close coverage of events in Tunisia and Egypt, speeding images of uprising that rattled the autocratic leaders of the Arab world.

As in other parts of the Arab world, protesters had used social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to call for demonstrations, but they had not been scheduled until Thursday.

The BBC quoted witnesses as saying the unrest in Benghazi was inspired by the arrest of a lawyer who has criticized the government. Around 2,000 people took part, the BBC said, quoting witnesses as saying police used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets.

The turmoil began in Tunisia, where the former president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, was forced into exile in Saudi Arabia in mid-January. It spread to Egypt where an 18-day uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak as president after almost three decades in power.

Protests have spread this week alone to Yemen, Bahrain and Iran.

Colonel Qaddafi took power in a bloodless coup in 1969 and has ruled his oil-exporting country with an iron fist, seeking to spread a revolutionary influence in Africa. He has been accused in the West of sponsoring terrorism.

Apart from his security forces, Colonel Qaddafi has built his rule on a cult of personality and a network of family and tribal alliances supported by largesse from Libya’s oil revenues.

Internationally, he is regarded as an erratic and quixotic figure who travels with an escort of female bodyguards and likes to live in a large tent of the kind used by desert nomads.

The turmoil in the Middle East has shaken his immediate neighbors to the east in Egypt and to the west in Tunisia, prompting him to lower food prices. The high cost of food was one of the factors contributing to the explosion in Tunisia.

Like Mr. Mubarak in Egypt and other rulers, Colonel Qaddafi has sought to build a dynasty to succeed him, with speculation currently centering on his son Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi.

The son achieved international prominence when he flew to Scotland in August 2009 to escort home Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie airliner bombing, after the Scottish government ordered his release on compassionate grounds. Mr. Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, had served 8 years of a 27-year minimum sentence on charges of murdering 270 people in Britain’s worst terrorist attack.

Some analysts said the location of the protests on Tuesday night was significant since Benghazi has long been regarded as having a political dynamic that sets it apart from the rest of the country.

Libyan news reports, quoted by Reuters, said Colonel Qaddafi planned to appear at a ceremony in Tripoli to open a soccer stadium on Wednesday, offering a potential opportunity to choreograph a show of popular support.