Libyan rebels control most of Libya’s oil production facilities, have taken over another town and are closing in on Tripoli, Muammar Qaddafi’s sole base. 

Reporters in the city of Zariwa, where Qaddafi’s supporters took them to show how its forces were in control, saw opposition fighters flying their own flag and controlling barricades in the city, where intense fighting took place last week.

 

Qaddafi continued to thump his version of events, charging that Libyan youth are being drugged to go on a rampage of "destruction and sabotage.”

He continues to hold on to the capital of Tripoli, but the opposition has firm control of most of the oil production facilities in Africa’s richest oil country.

Virtually the entire world has turned against Qaddafi, with the Arab League, the United Nations Security Council and Western powers demanding he end his slaughter of opponents and his 41-year-long rule. The Libyan delegation to the Arab League in Cairo has condemned Qaddafi for "heinous crimes against unarmed citizens." The UK, which had been accused of freeing the Lockerbie bomber for an oil deal, has joined the condemnation.

A bloody battle is in store in Tripoli, where opponents to the regime fear Qaddafi will unleash planes to bomb them, as he did last week to prevent rebels from reaching munitions stored in an abandoned military base.

The U.N. Security Council resolution Saturday against Qaddafi included an unprecedented call to the International Criminal Court hear evidence of his war crimes. Latest reports indicate that Qaddafi's troops and mercenaries have murdered well over 2,000 people.

The opposition movement has organized itself and established a transitional government that "will lead for no more than three months, and then there will be fair elections and the people will choose their leader,” according to Mustafa Abdel Jalil, formerly a justice minister under Qaddafi.