Police fire tear gas on anti-Gaddafi protesters in Tripoli

Security forces in the Libyan capitol of Tripoli have fired tear gas on hundreds of protesters who gathered on the streets after Friday prayers.

Loyalists to Moammar Gaddafi, including secret police, have tightened security at strategic area of Tripoli, which remains a pro-regime stronghold.

Worshippers reportedly streamed out of a mosque in the center of Tripoli, chanting Gaddafi is the enemy of God.”

According to Reuters, one protester said This is the end for Gaddafi. It's over. Forty years of crimes are over.”

There was also a heavy police presence in the Tripoli district of Tajoura, where Gaddafi’s forces are exerting control to dissuade demonstrations.

They fired tear gas, a Reuters reporter in Tajoura said. I heard shooting. People are scattering.
There have been accounts of arrests, detentions, disappearances and killings in Tripoli and elsewhere over the past few days.

Foreign journalists in Tripoli have been hampered by security guards who are blocking their movements around the city. Internet service is also reportedly disrupted in Tripoli and the eastern city of Benghazi.

Similar demonstrations last Friday after prayers resulted in bloodshed with security forces firing on unarmed protesters.

Meanwhile, Gaddafi’s soldiers have reportedly launched more air strikes on rebel bases in the eastern part of the country. A warplane bombed the Mediterranean port of Ajdabiya, which is controlled by rebels.

For the people of Ajdabiya, these men are martyrs to their revolution. And the more of their comrades who are killed, the more they are determined to defeat Muammar Gaddafi, reported Jacky Rowland, an Al Jazeera correspondent.

Gaddafi’s pilots carried out a second day of bombing runs on the harbor of Brega, which houses Libya’s second-biggest oil facility and is now in the hands of the opposition, according to the Al Arabiya news network.

We are people who fight, we don't surrender, said opposition leader Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, and a former government minister, according to Reuters. Victory or death. We will not stop till we liberate all this country.

Other clashes between rebels and Gaddafi loyalists have been reported in the towns of Ras Lanuf, an eastern oil port, and in Az-Zawiyah, which is west of Tripoli.