The death toll in Libya continued to mount as rebels clashed with forces loyal to embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. At least 30 people were reported killed.
Eighteen of Friday's deaths occurred during fierce fighting in Zawiya, the closest opposition-held city to Libya's capital. The city's top rebel commander was among the dead.
The Khamis Brigade, named for one of Gadhafi's own sons, launched an assault on Zawiya in an effort to take back the city, which has been held by opposition forces for days.
One local resident told The Associated Press that mortars, machine guns and automatic residents were involved in Friday's fighting, but the pro-Gadhafi brigade was unsuccessful.
"Our men are fighting back the force, which is big," the resident said.
Meanwhile the eastern city of Benghazi, the centre of the rebel movement, was rocked by a powerful blast that killed at least 17 people. The cause of the explosion wasn't immediately clear.
And in Tripoli, Gadhafi's base, loyalists fired tear gas and live ammunition to crackdown on protests that were to begin after midday prayers.
One woman who spoke to Â鶹´«Ã½ Channel from the Libyan capital on condition of anonymity, out of fear she would be targeted by government forces, said that she saw "troops almost everywhere" in the streets on Friday morning.
"They weren't trying to attack or to kill because they don't want the media to know what the regime is up to," she said.
Libyan authorities barred foreign journalists from leaving their hotel in Tripoli on Friday, blaming a threat from "al Qaeda elements" for the restriction. The journalists were later allowed to enter the city.
Terror campaign
Residents of the capital have relayed reports of security forces snatching suspected protesters from their homes and of heavy government surveillance, suggesting the regime has launched a campaign of terror to maintain order in Tripoli.
"While you are speaking to me now, there are spies everywhere and people watching me and you," said one man who cut short a conversation with an Associated Press reporter on Thursday.
Some people who have gone missing in Tripoli have later turned up dead, their bodies thrown in the street.
Gadhafi's power is now anchored in that city and some of the surrounding towns. Much of eastern Libya has fallen to opposition forces.
CTV's South Asia Bureau Chief Janis Mackey Frayer said opposition leaders also called for protests in Benghazi, which has become the centre of the movement to push Gadhafi from power.
"They called for outdoor prayers today. Thousands of people are in the streets and they are hoping to rally afterward," Mackey Frayer told CTV's Canada AM by telephone from Benghazi.
"And as a continuation of their campaign to oust Gadhafi from power, the opposition here is not open to compromise. It says there cannot be any sort of negotiation to settle this uprising until Moammar Gadhafi quits."
Mackey Frayer said the long-time Libyan dictator is "reportedly hiring hundreds of more mercenaries from other African countries to try and bolster the loyalists around him," while opposition forces are relying on volunteers and mutinous army units who have defected from Gadhafi.
Exodus slows
The number of refugees fleeing to neighbouring Tunisia reportedly dropped on Friday from a high of 10,000 per day down to about 2,000.
CTV's Middle East Correspondent Martin Seemungal, reporting from the Libya-Tunisian border, said that it's unclear why the exodus has slowed.
"Most of these people are migrant workers, they're not Libyans," he said. "A lot of them are Egyptians, but in the last 48 hours we've seen people from Vietnam, from China, and today a lot of Bangladeshis are coming across and have gathering just inside the border."
The Tunisian authorities are "very welcoming" of the Libyan refugees, he added, but they are struggling to arrange food, housing and medical care for the estimated 100,000 people who have flowed into their country since the uprising began in Libya 18 days ago.
With files from The Associated Press
