We have learned from Egypt - Gaddafi warned

Human Rights Watch said that according to its sources inside Libya, security forces had killed at least 24 people over the past two days. Exile groups have given much higher tolls, which could not be confirmed.

The protests have been focused on the country's east, including Benghazi, where support for Gaddafi has been historically weaker than in the rest of the country. The area is largely cut off from international media.

One protester, Nizar Jebail, owner of an advertising company, said he spent the night in front of the city's court building. He urged not just reforms, but "freedom and equality".

"There are lawyers, judges, men and some women here, demanding the end of Gaddafi. Forty-two years of dictatorship are enough," he said by phone.

"We don't have tents yet, but residents provided us with blankets and food. We learned from Tunisia and Egypt."

In the first concession of any kind from the country's leadership during the recent disorder, the most politically active of the dictator's sons, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, announced on his website, Quryna, that the country's national congress had halted its session indefinitely and would take steps to reform the government when it reconvenes. Many executives would be replaced.

Two Swiss-based exile groups said anti-government forces, joined by defecting police, battled security forces for control of the town of Al Bayda, 125 miles north-east of Benghazi and scene of deadly clashes this week.

An opposition activist said the town was calm yesterday after the burial of 14 people killed in Thursday's protests. "A massacre took place here," he said.

A hospital official in Al Bayda said bodies of at least 23 slain protesters were at his facility. It was treating about 500 wounded - some in a car park for lack of beds. "We need doctors, medicine, everything," he said.

Witnesses, both in Al Bayda and Zentan, 75 miles south of Tripoli, said "special militia" units called Khamis Brigades were deployed in their cities. In Al Bayda, local police - who are in the same tribe as residents - allied with protesters and prevented attacks from the militia, according to a witness and Mohammed Ali Abdullah, deputy leader of the exiled National Front for the Salvation of Libya.

"I saw African migrants and I saw Tunisians among the militia," the witness said.

In Zentan, a female witness said a Khamis Brigades unit attacked the city after protesters set fire to police stations and sprayed graffiti on the walls that read: "Down with Gaddafi."

Officials with loudspeakers offered money for residents to stop protesting. Their message was, "we can give you money; whatever you want, we can provide," said the woman, who was standing at the top of her building. "Then they cut electricity and water. This is a mountain area and the weather is cold."

Ashour Shamis, a London-based Libyan journalist, said protesters had stormed Benghazi's Kuwafiyah prison and freed dozens of political prisoners. Quryna said 1,000 prisoners had escaped and 150 had been recaptured.

The capital Tripoli has been calmer, with Gaddafi supporters staging demonstrations of their own. The leader appeared briefly in the early hours of yesterday at Green Square in the centre of Tripoli, surrounded by crowds of supporters. He did not speak.

A sermon at Friday prayers in Tripoli, broadcast on state television, urged people to ignore reports in foreign media "which doesn't want our country to be peaceful, which… is the aim of Zionism and imperialism, to divide our country."

Text messages sent to mobile phone subscribers thanked people who ignored calls to join protests. "We congratulate our towns which understood that interfering with national unity threatens the future of generations," it said.

Two people in Benghazi, which is about 600 miles east of Tripoli, said that Saadi Gaddafi, another son of the Libyan leader and ex-professional football player in Italy, had taken over command of the city.

Libya watchers say the situation is different from Egypt, because Gaddafi has oil cash to smooth over social problems - yet a third of the population live at the UN-defined poverty level. Gaddafi is respected in much of the country, none the less.

"For sure there is no national uprising," said Noman Benotman, a former opposition Libyan Islamist who is based in Britain but is currently in Tripoli. "I don't think Libya is comparable to Egypt or Tunisia. Gaddafi would fight to the very last moment," he said from the Libyan capital.