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Â«All my people love me,Â» Kadhafi tells foreign media

01 March 2011 00:48 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Libya’s beleaguered strongman Moamer Kadhafi insisted Monday "all my people love me" in an interview with foreign media, including ABC television, APA reports quoting AFP.
"All my people love me. They would die to protect me," the veteran Libyan leader said, according to ABC’s Christiane Amanpour in a message sent on her Twitter account.
Kadhafi, who has ruled his north African country for more than 41 years, also refused to acknowledge there were any demonstrations on the streets of Tropoli, Amanpour added.
ABC said in a statement that Kadhafi had sat down for the interview with the US television channel as well as the BBC and The Times of London as world powers ramped up pressure on his regime.
"The people of Libya have made themselves clear: it is time for Kadhafi to go -- now, without further violence or delay," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva.
Opposition demonstrations against Kadhafi’s regime erupted nearly two weeks ago in the wake of the upheavals in Egypt and Tunisia, and pro-democracy forces now control vast swathes of the east.
But Kadhafi alleged the people who had come on to the streets were under the influence of drugs supplied by Al-Qaeda, the BBC reported.
He also said people had seized weapons and that his supporters were under orders not to shoot back, the British broadcaster added.
But witnesses said Kadhafi’s forces had hit back Monday, with fighter jets bombing an ammunition stores in the eastern town of Adjabiya, around 100 kilometres (62 miles) south of the capital Tripoli.
Two planes also attacked a munitions dump at Rajma, just south of the city, a military reservist told AFP.
The brutal crackdown on opposition protests has killed at least 1,000 people and set off a "humanitarian emergency," the UN refugee agency UNHCR has said warning of an exodus of people from Libya.
Faced with the threat of massacres or a wave of refugees on their Mediterranean flank, senior Western officials, including France’s Prime Minister Francois Fillon, were Monday weighing military options.
"We’re studying all options to ensure that Colonel Kadhafi understands that he has to go. I know that people have mentioned military solutions, and these solutions are being examined by the French government," Fillon said in an interview with RTL radio.
One option on the table was using NATO air power to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to stop Kadhafi from using air strikes against his own people. However, such a step would require UN approval, experts said.
The United States said exile was "one option" that would satisfy its demands for Kadhafi to go.