In eastern Libya, town keeps shaky hold after fighting off forces loyal to Gaddafi

"The fundamental thing that we're committed to today is to prepare for the embargo," Jalil said. "We are going to fight, and if we have to, we'll fast for a few days and depend on our neighbors."

Jalil also said he was concerned, not least about the uncontrolled distribution of weapons in a place where teenage boys have begun driving tanks in the streets.

"Our strategy is to collect the arms and use them for good and keep national unity," he said as men gathered around to thank him for resigning and to give him flowers.

While it is tense, there are no signs of infighting here. Everyone is armed, but the people are united by their contempt for Gaddafi.

Just days ago, the picture was far different, with bloody battles in the streets. On Wednesday, spent ammunition from rifles and antiaircraft weapons littered the streets. Fresh blood stained the ground.

Residents said mercenaries flown in from other parts of Africa had gone on a killing rampage.

The town's young men reacted with grief, and with rage.

One man took a tractor and broke down the walls of the Kitab security base in Shahat, where mercenaries were housed, witnesses and participants said. In a battle that lasted a day and a half, the residents overwhelmed the forces, killing some and taking others hostage. The captives are being held in secret locations throughout the area.

At the local airport, residents have blocked the runways with large rocks, car parts and other debris to keep the government from flying in reinforcements.

This area has a history of resistance to unwanted rulers. Every child knows the name of Omar Mukhtar, a fighter who battled Libya's colonial masters, the Italians. An uprising in the 1990s was violently quelled by Gaddafi.

On Wednesday, the young men celebrated their victory in a local square, with a portrait of Mukhtar hanging overhead.

Before the uprising began, it was common for people to disappear for speaking even one word against Gaddafi or his government, residents said.

"The only place you opened your mouth was at the dentist," said Abdul Hamid Gebril, a law professor.

A teacher whose cousin disappeared in 2003 said the fate of those who vanish is widely understood.

"Anyone who enters the prisons of Moammar, we know after a few years that person is killed," she said while speaking inside her home, too afraid to allow her name to be printed. "Even we don't know where they're buried. You say something and the next day the intelligence comes and that's it. You never hear from them again."

The uprising must continue, she said, but it will be bloodier than the ones that succeeded in neighboring Tunisia and Egypt.

"In Egypt, people sat in the square with children, fathers and mothers and slept, and they sang and danced. I saw them on television," she said. "Here our streets are bloody, and our youths are killed."