Gaddafi calls on loyalists in Tripoli as protests spread

Anti government demonstrations in Libya are getting closer to the capital.

Protesters have taken to the streets in the outskirts of Tripoli but were then fired on by government militia.

One eye witness described the scene as a massacre with the sky raining bullets.

Colonel Gaddafi has called on his supporters to defend the nation. Earlier his son went on television to say that he and his father would never leave Libya alive.

The BBC's Ian Pannell reports from the Libya-Tunisia border.