Gadhafi: I Will Die Here as a Martyr

'May Allah curse those rats'
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 22, 2011 10:27 AM CST
Moammar Gadhafi: I Will Die in Libya as a Martyr
This image broadcast on Libyan state television Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011, shows Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi as he addresses the nation in Tripoli, Libya.   (AP Photo/Libya State Television via APTN)

Moammar Gadhafi isn't going anywhere. In a furious speech delivered on state TV today, the AP reports that he called himself a warrior and said he was willing to die as a martyr. Speaking from a podium set up at a bombed out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence (which was hit by US airstrikes in the 1980s), he continued:

  • "May Allah curse those rats and shame on their clans and tribes if they happen to have clans and tribes."
  • "I'm not going to leave this land. I'm going to die here and die here as a martyr."

  • "My father's skin is still lying in his grave; my cousin's skin is still lying in his grave. I'm not going to leave those honorable graves behind me and flee."
  • "Libya is a tree and we have watered this tree with our blood, and in the shade of this tree we will remain."
  • "The superpowers, they target the house of Gadhafi. They didn't target anyone else's home, but they targeted Gadhafi with jets because Moammar Gadhafi is the leader of a revolution. They know that Moammar Gadhafi is not an ordinary person to kill and poison."
  • "And when bombs were dropped on this house and when my children were killed ... where have you been, you rats and rodents? Where have you been, of course you've been with USA."
(More Libya stories.)

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