Revolt in Libya: Khadafy speaks, says 'I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela' amid revolution chaos

The regime of eccentric Libyan despot Col. Moammar Khadafy appeared on the verge of collapse on Monday night after he ordered his warplanes to bomb protesters in Tripoli.

As global horror mounted at the spectacle of a dictator bombing his own capital, Khadafy appeared for all of five bizarre seconds on state TV.

Sitting in an old Jeep with the door open, holding a giant golf umbrella and wearing a hat with earflaps, Khadafy said he had spoken to some protesters.

\"I want to clarify that I am in Tripoli and not in Venezuela. Don't believe the media dogs,\" the strongman said.

Then, state TV cut to stock video of soldiers marching.

It was telling that of all the terrible reports of what happened in Libya yesterday, the rumor that he had fled to Venezuela was the only one Khadafy tried to refute.

Amid an ongoing massacre, nearly a dozen Libyan ambassadors - including envoys to Washington, Sweden, Poland, Indonesia and China - quit and begged theinteational community to impose a no-fly zone on their homeland.

\"They want to kill as much people as they can,\" said Ibrahim Dabbashi in New York after quitting as Libya's ambassador to the United Nations. \"We are trying to mobilize the inteational community to try and do something to stop the mass killings.\"

Protesters gather in a show of strength during recent days' unrest in Benghazi, Libya. (AP)

He said Khadafy could not last.

\"It is the end of the game. We will soon see the fall of this regime,\" Dabbashi said.

Ali al-Essawi, who stepped down as Libyan ambassador to India, told Al Jazeera TV the situation was desperate.

\"People cannot defend themselves against airplane bombings. We need inteational intervention,\" he said.

Two senior Libyan Air Force colonels arrived in nearby Malta aboard two fighter jets. They said they had been ordered to bombard protesters from the air but chose instead to defect.

Libya's justice minister also resigned in protest at the \"excessive use of violence\" against protesters.

A Tripoli resident told Al Jazeera in a nearly hysterical phone call that the whole city was coming under fire.

\"There is intense shelling all over,\" he said. \"We tried to help the injured people but there are too many of them. Death is everywhere. Why is the world silent?\"

Pictures posted online from Libya showed helicopter gunships hovering overheard. Others showed gruesome piles of bodies that had been blown to pieces.

Refugees arriving in Italy said carloads of African mercenaries in yellow hats were riding around shooting indiscriminately.

Ali Ojli, who quit as Libya's ambassador in Washington, called on President Obama to \"take a strong position.\"

\"They have to stop this,\" he said on AlJazeera.

Washington, which has chilly relations with Tripoli and little leverage over the regime, said nothing for most of the day.

Late yesterday, Secretary of State Clinton condemned the violence, declaring that \"now is the time to stop this unacceptable bloodshed.\"

The rapid developments in Libya - which appeared likely to topple the Arab world's longest-ruling despot - echoed remarkably similar revolts in Egypt and Tunisia.With Al Barbarino