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Zintan, Libya • Families fleeing their homes to avoid a possible rebel assault on the Libyan capital described deteriorating living conditions in Tripoli: Power outages lasting days, gun battles at night and a climate of fear in which no one dares to criticize the regime — even among friends.
With opposition fighters steadily gaining ground in the six-month-old civil war, there are signs that Moammar Gadhafi's 42-year-old rule may be unraveling. The rebels seized Libya's last functioning oil refinery Thursday and claimed to have captured most of the nearby city of Zawiya, just 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of the capital along the Mediterranean coast.
A rebel victory in Zawiya could leave Gadhafi nearly cornered in his increasingly isolated stronghold of Tripoli. Rebel fighters are now closing in on the capital from the west and the south, while NATO controls the seas to the north. The opposition is in charge of most of the eastern half of the country.
The Libyan leader has given no indication he is willing to relinquish power, however, and rebels could easily get bogged down on the way to the capital or face a protracted battle there.
"We know he (Gadhafi) is finished," said Mohammed Said, a 50-year-old school teacher who fled Tripoli on Tuesday. "We just don't know when."
Tripoli residents are aware of the rebel advances, but won't speak out against the regime, even among friends, for fear of arrest.
"We are afraid of one another," said Said, who now lives with his 13-member family in his parents' home in the mountain town of Zintan, the nerve center of the rebels' recent push toward the Gadhafi-held coast.
A 42-year-old Islamic school teacher and her four children, ages 12 to 17, left their home in the Tripoli neighborhood of Tajoura, an anti-regime bastion, on Monday and reached Zintan through back roads.
The family members said they had lived in constant fear of Gadhafi loyalists and requested anonymity to avoid retribution.
"Every household in Tajoura has someone in prison," said the mother, who is originally from Zintan and found refuge in her childhood home. She said there were nightly gun battles in her Tripoli neighborhood.
Her 16-year-old son said he mostly stayed home in recent months, rarely going to school, to avoid being searched and questioned at checkpoints. He said that out of 30 classmates, five were arrested because they participated in anti-government protests in February.
The family left home with just a few belongings so neighbors would not be alerted to the departure, said the woman.
When driving south, the family encountered about 10 checkpoints and lied to the soldiers about their destination to avoid being turned back. At the last checkpoint, troops refused to let the car pass. The woman said she turned around and followed other drivers on back roads.
"I was terrified. My heart was pounding," she said.
Said, who left his home in Tripoli's western Janzour neighborhood, said life is becoming increasingly difficult in the capital. Since the start of August, there have been blackouts lasting several days at a time.
After nightfall, security agents stop and search vehicles at checkpoints across the city, and the sound of gun battles can be heard frequently. He said he does not know who is shooting, noting that he and many of his neighbors don't venture out after dark.
Motorists lining up at gas stations wait several days for their turn, and the black market price for filling a tank is about 200 dinars, just 50 dinars less than Said's monthly pension payment.
In Thursday, five loud explosions shook the center of Tripoli, possibly striking near Gadhafi's compound. The thunderous blasts rattled a hotel where journalists are staying. Gadhafi's compound is near the hotel and a frequent target of air raids.
NATO jets flew overhead minutes after the blasts. It wasn't clear what was hit or if there were civilian casualties. NATO has bombarded military targets all over Libya since March when a no-fly zone was instituted.
Zintan local officials met Thursday with representatives from the United Nations' main refugee agency to find a solution for the growing number of refugees. Mahmoud Shaibi, a member of the city council, said about 12,000 refugees have reached the mountain area, and that the pace of new arrivals has quickened in the past week.
The head of the city council, Ahmed Ammar, said he has asked the U.N. to set up a tent camp in Zintan. Up to now, many of the newcomers were hosted by families in the mountains, but space is running out, he said.
Laurent Groisbois, a U.N. official, said the aim is to set up shelter for the refugees in Libya, and prevent another mass exodus to already overburdened Tunisia. Thousands of Libyans have fled there since the start of the civil war.
"When you look at the political situation in Tunisia, they have elections coming in October, there are already local tensions, the prices have already increased due to the massive arrival of Libyans, and Libyans want to stay in their country," Groisbois said after a meeting with city council members.
Libya's civil war erupted after anti-regime protests spread across the country in February and were brutally crushed by Gadhafi's forces. Rebels quickly seized eastern Libya and established two strongholds in the west, including the Nafusa mountain range.
The rebel advance then stalled until earlier this month, when opposition fighters pushed from the Nafusa mountains into the Gadhafi-held coastal area. Saturday's entry by rebels into Zawiya, a city of 200,000, marked the most dramatic gain yet of the new offensive.
On Thursday, rebel fighters said they widened their control over Zawiya after engaging in street fighting with Gadhafi loyalists. The loyalists were firing from snipers' nests and pounding the city with rockets and mortars.
A rebel commander, Col. Ali Ahrash, said opposition forces on Thursday seized the sprawling oil refinery complex west of Zawiya and now control all of the city except for two main streets and the central hospital.
The BBC reported that one of its news crews was taken around the refinery by rebels and that there was no sign of pro-Gadhafi troops.
The capture of the 120,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Zawiya is not expected to have a major impact on Gadhafi's ability to secure fuel.
The flow of crude to the refinery from fields in the southwest of Libya had largely been halted since midsummer. The refinery was believed to be running at about one-third of its normal capacity, drawing mainly on crude oil that was in its storage tanks. Zawiya mostly produced fuel oil, not gasoline.
Gadhafi's prime minister, al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, said the government was in negotiations with the rebels. "We are also calling on all sides for a cease-fire," al-Mahmoudi said.
Gadhafi's government has previously called for a cease-fire but continued to shell towns where rebels tried to take power. Rebel leaders have said they will not negotiate until Gadhafi steps down.