20110223
reuters

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A senior aide to Muammar Gaddafi's influential son Saif resigned on Wednesday, the latest top official to walk out after the Libyan leader vowed to crush a revolt that threatens his four-decade rule.

"I resigned from the Gaddafi Foundation on Sunday to express dismay against violence," Youssef Sawani said in a text message sent to a Reuters correspondent. He was executive director of the foundation, which has been Saif al-Islam's main vehicle for wielding influence.

A defiant Muammar Gaddafi in a long and rambling speech on Tuesday said he was ready to die "a martyr" in Libya and urged his supporters to take to the streets on Wednesday to crush the uprising that has seen eastern regions break free of his 41-year rule and brought deadly unrest to the capital.

Swathed in brown robes, Gaddafi seethed with anger and banged a podium outside one of his residences that was damaged in a 1986 U.S. air strike aiming to kill him. Next to him stood a monument of a fist crushing a U.S. fighter jet.

"I am not going to leave this land. I will die here as a martyr," Gaddafi said on state television, refusing to bow to calls from some of his own ministers, soldiers and protesters who braved a fierce crackdown to clamour for him to go.

Popular protests in Libya's neighbours Egypt and Tunisia have toppled entrenched leaders, but Gaddafi said he would not be forced out by the rebellion sweeping through his vast oil-producing nation of just 7 million people, which stretches from the Mediterranean into the Sahara.

"I shall remain here defiant," said Gaddafi, who has ruled the mainly desert country with a mixture of populism and tight control since taking power in a military coup in 1969.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council condemned the use of violence and called for those responsible for attacks on civilians to be held to account.

The turmoil in Libya, which pumps nearly 2 percent of world oil output, sent Brent crude prices above $108 a barrel to a 2 1/2 year high and triggered Wall Street's worst day since August as investors dumped stocks.