"I am watching neighbors die unarmed in front of their homes".

This is getting truly ugly and their are some very brave people losing their lives in Libya.  The details are becoming more and more gruesome daily as the revolution rages on.

What would happen if this type of armed assault came against USA Citizens?  Would you be prepared?  I am hoping that organizations such as Oathkeepers would kick into high gear and help the citizens of it's country.

I am hoping this never will happen in the USA...but I have my doubts.  Perhaps only a matter of time.

The Strong Watchman

Original article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/world/africa/06libya.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&ei=5065&partner=MYWAY

TRIPOLI, Libya — Each side of the nascent civil war in Libya pushed forward Saturday as militia forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafilaunched a second day of brutal attacks on the rebel-held city of Zawiyah, just 30 miles west of the capital, and a ragtag rebel army moving from the east won its first ground battle to take the oil port of Ras Lanuf about midway down the Mediterranean coast.

Both sides are girding for a confrontation in the coming days at the port of Surt, a stronghold of Colonel Qaddafi’s native tribe that blocks the rebels’ moves toward the capital, Tripoli.

Eighteen days after it began with spirited demonstrations in the eastern city of Benghazi, the Libyan uprising has veered starkly from the pattern of relatively quick and nonviolent upheavals that ousted the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt. Instead, the rebellion here appeared Saturday to have become mired in a drawn-out ground campaign between two relatively unprofessional and loosely organized forces — the Libyan Army and the rebels — that is exacting high civilian casualties and is likely to drag on for some time.

The government attacks on the northwestern city of Zawiyah on Saturday produced heavy casualties and at the same time raised puzzling questions about what strategy the government had in mind. For the second day in a row its forces battered the rebels, then pulled back to maintain a siege on the city from an impenetrable ring around the perimeter.

Foreign journalists, who have been invited into the city of Tripoli, were unable to cross military checkpoints to evaluate reports of what Zawiyah residents called “a massacre.”

Witnesses there began frantic calls to journalists in Tripoli at 6 a.m. Saturday to report that soldiers of the government militia — the Khamis brigade, loyal to Colonel Qaddafi’s son and considered the family’s most formidable force — had broken through the east and west gates of the city. “They are killing us,” one resident said. “They are firing on us.”

The militia was attacking with tanks, heavy artillery and machine guns, witnesses said, and the explosions of a variety of munitions were clearly audible in the background. “I am watching neighbors dying unarmed in front of their homes,” one resident said. “I don’t know how many are being killed, but I know my neighborhood is being killed.”

In a telephone interview a little more than three hours after the attack began, another resident said: “Everything is burning. We don’t know from which side they are shooting us — from the buildings or from the streets. People are falling everywhere.”

The rebels, including former members of the Libyan military, returned fire. Although a death toll was impossible to determine, one resident said four of his neighbors were killed, including one who was found stripped of his clothes.

A correspondent for Sky News, the only foreign news organization in the city, reported seeing the militia fire on ambulances trying to remove the wounded from the streets. Sky News, a British satellite TV channel had arrived early Friday morning before the violence began and Libyan security forces cut off the roads.

The reporter also said she had seen at least eight dead soldiers and five armored vehicles burning in the central square.

At 10 a.m., witnesses said, the Qaddafi forces abruptly withdrew from the city, taking up their positions in a close circle surrounding it.

Some rebels attempted to paint the pullout as a victory, saying that they had recovered Libyan Army cars and other weapons. They said the militia had set fire to some of its own damaged cars rather than let them fall into rebel hands.

A rebel spokesman told Reuters that the rebels had captured three armored personnel carriers, two tanks and a pickup truck.

But other rebel supporters acknowledged that there was little evidence that they had inflicted enough damage on the militia to force the retreat.

Residents said they were unable to leave and visitors could not enter the city. A group of Western journalists trying to reach the city, including correspondents for The Los Angeles Times and the BBC, were detained by the Libyan military.

“If you come here you will not believe what you see,” one resident implored. “It is like a war zone.”

Then, at about 4:00 p.m., the militia attacked again. A witness said as many as six tanks rolled through town, there were more skirmishes with the rebel forces, and then the tanks left as quickly as they arrived.

“We don’t know which side they are coming from,” one witness said in a panicked phone call.

On the eastern front, rebel volunteers pushed past Ras Lanuf, an oil refinery town that they retook from Colonel Qaddafi’s loyalists on Friday night, leaving empty streets on Saturday morning.

There were conflicting reports on the casualties in the battle for Ras Lanuf. A rebel said that 12 rebels were killed in the fighting, in which rocket-propelled grenades and anti-aircraft guns were used.

Officials at a hospital in the nearby city of Ajdabiya, however, said only five rebels were killed and 31 wounded in the attack, The A.P. reported. Reuters cited doctors saying 26 had died.

By late afternoon, the rebel fighters were apparently within striking distance of the town of Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s birthplace and a city where he retains considerable support. The city also sits on the road to Tripoli, a major obstacle for the rebels in their drive to reach the capital.

For days, rebel leaders have tried in vain to turn Surt’s leaders to their side. As that effort has foundered, their armed volunteers have quickly advanced towards the city, shadowed and bombed, by the government’s warplanes.

On Saturday afternoon the rebel fighters had regrouped at Bin Jawwad, about 130 miles east of Surt. Gunfire and bombing could be heard about 15 miles farther west down the road. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Near Benghazi, the ruins of an ammunition dump still smoldered Saturday, after large explosions on Friday evening leveled at least three buildings and toppled trees more than 300 yards away. At least 16 people died in the blasts, which some witnesses said were caused by airstrikes and others said may have been accidents. Two bodies were still lying in the middle of a field near the buildings.

One building collapsed on rows of anti-aircraft guns. People dug through the rubble, including soldiers who removed cartridges of ammunition and placed them into trucks, presumably bound for the front lines.