Gadhafi Threatens Deaths if US Intervenes; Rebels Beat Back Attack

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi vowed today to fight until the "last drop of blood," but his forces suffered a blow when rebels beat back a major counteroffensive and managed to retain control of a key oil port in the eastern part of the country.

At least 10 anti-Gadhafi fighters died in the battle at the Brega oil port today, The Associated Press reported.

With his warplanes bombing rebel-held towns in eastern Libya, Gadhafi warned that "thousands of Libyans will die" if the U.S. or NATO intervene to stop attacks on anti-government protesters.

His haunting threat came in a nearly three-hour speech to a crowd of handpicked supporters in Tripoli, as U.S. warships passed into the Mediterranean approaching Libya. "They will set foot in hell -- worse than Afghanistan," Gadhafi said.

"We will enter a bloody war, and thousands and thousands of Libyans will die if the United States or NATO enters," the BBC quoted Gadhafi as saying.

"It will become another Vietnam, another historic battle," he warned, as his warplanes unleashed artillery on pro-democracy protesters hundreds of miles away.

At Brega, Gadhafi's ground forces made their biggest push yet to defeat the two-week-old popular rebellion inspired by revolutions in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt. But according to an AP reporter on the scene, rebels eventually repelled the attack on the Mediterraean port, pushing Gadhafi's fighters back to a nearby university and causing 200 of them to flee. Warplanes continued to fire on Brega's beaches as dusk fell.

The Libyan leader predicted that piracy and jihad would embroil the Mediterranean if his regime falls, and he vowed to hire Chinese and Indian companies to work in Libya's oil industry, instead of Western ones. Oil production has reached its lowest level, he said.

Gadhafi accused the international media of "filling the air with provocation and nonsense" and denied the existence of any pro-democracy protests in his country, saying al-Qaida was breaking into prisons and arming criminals instead. His speech was broadcast on state TV, which also reported that government forces had retaken rebel strongholds.

Western powers have weighed the idea of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya, to prevent such aerial assaults and stop Gadhafi from flying in more foreign mercenaries to open fire on his people. But the idea, floated by British Prime Minister David Cameron, got a lukewarm response from the U.S. and France. Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam poked fun at Cameron afterward, saying he's trying "to be hero," The Guardian reported.

As U.S. forces assemble closer to Libya, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he's looking at "a lot of options and contingencies." But Arab foreign ministers are meeting today in Cairo, Egypt, and are expected to underscore their opposition to any foreign military intervention. That follows word that rebel leaders may ask for Western air strikes under the U.N. banner.

Any Libyan who even suggests the country needs foreign aid is guilty of "high treason," Gadhafi said today.

Witnesses described seeing warplanes over eastern Libya at mid-morning, then ran for cover as bombs rained down. Rebel military commanders confirmed Gadhafi's initial success in wresting control of a key oil installation in the Mediterranean town of Brega, 125 miles from Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city and now an opposition stronghold.

"It's true. There was aerial bombardment of Brega, and Gadhafi's forces have taken it," Mohamed Yousef, an officer in the town of Ajdabiyah, nearly 50 miles from Brega, told Reuters. Later, rebels mounted a counterattack, and it was unclear who was ultimately in control of the city. There were reports of bombs falling in Ajdabiyah as well.

"I see two jets bombing now," an unnamed witness there told the AP. Another said rebel fighters are rushing to Ajdabiya's outskirts to confront pro-Gadhafi forces. "We are ready to repel their attack."

Infamously eccentric and unpredictable, Gadhafi has spent recent days in interviews with Western media, trying to convince the world that his people love him. But with Libya essentially split for the past two weeks, and with Gadhafi in control of only the capital Tripoli and other western towns, fears have been growing that he could try to launch a comeback in the rebel-controlled east.

"There is a possibility, indeed a real possibility, that Gadhafi might make a desperate last-ditch attempt to free himself from the siege that he finds himself in," MSNBC quoted Italy's industry minister, Paolo Romani, as telling Italian television.