Gadhafi son vows 'victory soon'

By the CNN Wire Staff

August 31, 2011 4:16 p.m. EDT

Tripoli, Libya (CNN) -- A son of fugitive Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi called Wednesday for fellow Libyans to rise up against the "gangsters," "rats" and "mercenaries" attempting to wrest control of his country. "We will have victory soon," Saif al-Islam Gadhafi told Rai TV, a Syrian television station, in a telephone call. "Everyone should move now, begin to attack these gangsters," he said. "Attack everyone, day and night, until we clean this country from those gangsters and those traitors." He added, "Everyone is Moammar Gadhafi. Wherever you see the enemy, attack them. They are weak, they have suffered lots of losses and they are now licking their wounds." Gadhafi did not divulge the whereabouts of his father, but said, "The leader is fine. We are fighting and we are drinking tea and drinking coffee and sitting with our families and fighting." Gadhafi said he was speaking from a suburb of Tripoli, where he had met with residents and found their morale was high. "No one is afraid or frightened," he said. Referring to the rebels' ultimatum to the people of Sirte to surrender by Saturday or face an attack, Gadhafi said they would find loyalist forces "ready, willing and able" to defend the city where his father was born. "This is no more than media propaganda to distort public opinion," he said. And, referring to the rebel takeover last week of Moammar Gadhafi's compound, he noted that it had already been abandoned after more than 64 air attacks by NATO warplanes. "NATO are idiots," he said. "They are just naive and fools." He predicted that loyalist forces would retake Tripoli's Green Square, which has been renamed Martyrs Square by rebels. "Victory or martyrdom," he said. "God is great!" Saif al-Islam Gadhafi said he had spoken with tribal leaders "and they all agreed unanimously that this is our country and we will defend it." He said rebel ranks were filled not by Libyans or even Arabs, but by foreign mercenaries, including English and French forces. "It is our country and it is our people that we are fighting for," he said. Any Libyans who may have appeared with rebel forces were acting under duress and threat, he said. "They hold them hostage and they tell them either we rape your women or you will have to make this announcement." He called NATO "the worst alliance and worst people in the world."

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/08/31/libya.gadhafi.son/index.html?hpt=hp_t2