Libya's embattled leader Moammar Gadhafi said Saturday his country will never surrender in the face of assaults by rebels and a NATO air campaign.
In an audio address directed at the city of Zawiya where thousands demonstrated their support, Gadhafi promised that Libya would keep fighting.
"After we gave our children as martyrs, we can't backtrack, or surrender or give up or move an inch," he said, his voice booming over loudspeakers in the center of town. "Rest assured in your tombs, our martyrs, we will not betray you ever."
The speech was the third in as many days, each addressing inhabitants of a town under his control while thousands chanted their support for the country's leader of the past 41 years.
In his speech, also broadcast on national television, Gadhafi said the NATO airstrikes on Libya must stop to save civilian lives.
The rally was staged in the center of Zawiya, a city once under rebel control in the early weeks of the revolt against Gadhafi's rule and only taken back after a brutal battle.
The center of the city still bore scars of the fighting, with burned out and shattered buildings overlooking the cheering crowds swathed in green, Libya's national color.
"Here is Zawiya. Where are the ... traitors and the agents that you depended on? Where are those you bought with your money, you brainwashed?" he asked, addressing NATO.
"Zawiya can't be ruled by agents, non-believers, and traitors who are seeking help from the cross," he added.
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