“We don’t trust the regime anymore,” he said in a phone interview. 
 
 The government response in Libya underlined an unintended consequence of the success of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, where protests pouring into the streets day after day forced the departure of long-serving authoritarian leaders. In Libya, Yemen and Algeria, the governments have quickly resorted to violence to crush unrest before it gathers momentum that might threaten their grip on power. 
 
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 A day of antigovernment marches in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, took a violent turn as government supporters opened fire on a group opposing the 31-year rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, wounding at least four people. And hundreds of police officers in the Algerian capital, Algiers, used clubs to overwhelm antigovernment demonstrators. 
 
 The crackdown in Libya has proven the bloodiest of the recent government actions, drawing criticism from the United States and European allies. 
 
 In London, Foreign Minister William Hague said he had reports that heavy weapons fire and sniper units were being used against protests, organized in a half-dozen cities or more. “This is clearly unacceptable and horrifying,” he said in a statement. 
 
 Earlier in the day, thousands had returned to the courthouse in Benghazi. Idris Ahmed al-Agha, a Libyan writer reached by telephone, said the crowd had grown to more than 20,000 by midday — an account confirmed by others — with many of the people there planning to take part in funeral marches to bury dozens of people killed a day before. 
 
 Opposition Web sites reported that security forces later fired on some of the mourners. One site, Al Manara, said snipers fired from an army base that sits on the route to the cemetery, and a video posted on a Facebook page that has compiled images from the protests showed a march coming under fire, with at least one man shot in the head. Doctors have said that most of the dead have suffered gunshots. 
 
 Video 
 
 “It seems that security forces in Libya do not feel there are limits on how far they can go in suppressing protests,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Cairo who has been in contact with residents and doctors in Benghazi. 
 
 The government has viewed the situation in Benghazi as so precarious that Colonel Qaddafi sent his son, Saadi, to the eastern Libyan city last week in an attempt to mollify resentment, residents said. In a speech Wednesday, the son promised reform, but his overtures were seen as condescending, several said. His whereabouts were unclear on Saturday, with some saying he was holed up in a hotel in the city, where Colonel Qaddafi’s hold on power is not as strong as in the capital, Tripoli, in the west. 
 
 In Benghazi, protesters have echoed a chant heard in Tunisia, then picked up by protesters in Egypt: “The people want to topple the regime.” 
 
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 One of the region’s wealthier countries, Libya has been spared the economic grievances that offered a cadence to protests against President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. Nor does Colonel Qaddafi seem to generate the loathing that President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali did in Tunisia. Though his rule has proven idiosyncratic and eccentric, he has a luxury not afforded neighboring Egypt: vast oil revenues and a small population. 
 
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 But political grievances in places like Benghazi have deepened with the crackdown. Some accuse the state of deploying special forces and foreign mercenaries unable to speak Arabic to crush the protests, and the bloodshed — much of it inflicted on funeral marches — seems to have struck a chord of anger. 
 
 “They’re not going to go back to their homes,” said Issa Abed al-Majid Mansour, an exiled opposition leader in Oslo. “If they do, he’ll finish them off. They know the regime very well. There’s no to way to go back now. Never, never.” 
 
 The Libyan crackdown comes amid one of the most tumultuous moments in the Arab world in recent memory, with two longtime leaders falling in as many months and a series of Arab states facing defiant calls for change. 
 
 In the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, saved from much of the devastation visited on the rest of the country during the American-led war, a demonstration ended with gunfire for the second time in less than a week. Gunmen wearing civilian clothes fired on a group of students from the University of Sulaimaniya, wounding 12 people. Hundreds of students chanting antigovernment slogans had gathered on Saturday to demand the government apologize for the bloodshed at the earlier demonstration. The original protests were against local leaders in the semiautonomous area and echoed complaints across the region over the excessive power of long-ruling parties and corruption. 
 
 About 1,000 protesters demanding Mr. Saleh’s ouster in Yemen gathered for another day in Sana, squaring off against government supporters. Some protesters shouted, “Be peaceful!” but the calls were drowned out as the two sides hurled bottles, rocks and shoes at each other. Government supporters fired at protesters; one man, his chest bloodied, was carried away. 
 
 In Algiers, hundreds of baton-wielding police officers pushed back demonstrators, breaking up an antigovernment protest in the downtown. Thousands paraded peacefully through Tunis to demand the country adhere to secular traditions, in one of the largest protests since Mr. Ben Ali’s fall in January; since his ouster, many exiled Islamists have returned to the country, apparently raising concerns that that they would push for religion to play a greater role in politics. The government there also signed an amnesty decree that would free prisoners convicted on grounds of politics, security or activism. 
 
 The military government in Egypt took more steps toward a handover of power. State television reported that that within six months, the government would end the so-called emergency law which, for 30 years, has allowed detentions without charges or trial. The judge heading the effort to draft constitutional amendments said his panel might produce recommendations as early as Sunday, for a referendum in the coming weeks. And the government recognized the first new political party formed since the revolution, a moderate Islamist group that has sought recognition for 15 years. ||||| Gadhafi's Body Displayed At Private House 
 
 The dead body of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was on display today in a private house in the rebel stronghold of Misrata. Reporter Marine Olivesi was there and tells Melissa Block the home was crowded with Libyans eager to take a photo with the corpse of their former leader. 
 
 Copyright © 2011 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required. 
 
 ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. 
 
 MELISSA BLOCK, host: I'm Melissa Block. And we begin this hour with the death of a dictator. 
 
 (SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING) 
 
 BLOCK: Shaky video broadcast on Al-Jazeera shows men in the Libyan city of Sirte jostling around the body of Moammar Gadhafi. He's lying shirtless and bloodied on the ground. 
 
 SIEGEL: Gadhafi ruled Libya for 42 years, a regime of extreme brutality. Today, his opponents said that chapter has been closed. 
 
 (SOUNDBITE OF TV BROADCAST) 
 
 UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Through Translator) We announce to the world - we announce to the world the - that Moammar Gadhafi has been killed. 
 
 BLOCK: That announcement came from Libya's Transitional National Council. Celebration erupted in Tripoli, and here in Washington, D.C., President Obama said this is a momentous day in the history of Libya. 
 
 President BARACK OBAMA: The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted, and with this enormous promise, the Libyan people now have a great responsibility: to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Gadhafi's dictatorship. 
 
 SIEGEL: The circumstances of the Libyan leader's death remain unclear. We know there was heavy fighting in Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown and stronghold. Video has circulated of him captured alive but injured, and leaders of the new Libyan government say he was shot and killed in a gun battle between his captors and his supporters. 
 
 BLOCK: Gadhafi's body was taken from Sirte to the city of Misrata, and that's where we've reached freelance reporter Marine Olivesi. Marine, I gather, you saw the body of Moammar Gadhafi. 
 
 MARINE OLIVESI: The bodies of both Moammar Gadhafi and his son Mutassim Gadhafi have been brought to an individual house about 15 minutes drive from the center of Misrata. It's really unclear how he ended up there. It's been very difficult to look at him exactly. There were several rumors about his location, but we saw him in the main hallway of that private house. His body is lying on a mattress. There are people around trying to take pictures with him. It's clear that he was injured to the chest. He received several gunshots to the chest. He is lying there just with pants on, and, again, people crowding around, trying to get a picture of themselves with the dead body of Moammar Gadhafi. 
 
 BLOCK: And the people who are crowding around, Marine, these are people who live in Misrata? These are fighters? 
 
 OLIVESI: These are all people from Misrata. A lot of them have been fighting. People in Misrata, it has a specific meaning to them that the body was brought here because, as one of the Misrati here told me, they have been waiting for that moment for so long, and the town has suffered so much through the Libyan revolution. 
 
 I mean, one person beside me couldn't wait to get a picture with Moammar Gadhafi so that he can show his mom because he lost two brothers in the siege of Misrata, and that would mean a lot to his mother to see for herself the dead body of Moammar Gadhafi. So there's a sense of closure, it felt like it, for a lot of people here, for who the death of Moammar Gadhafi marks the end of those eight months and the end of the Libyan revolution. 
 
 BLOCK: I've been talking with freelance reporter Marine Olivesi. She's in the Libyan city of Misrata, where the body of Moammar Gadhafi was taken today. Marine, thank you very much. 
 
 OLIVESI: You're welcome. 
 
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– In direct contrast to the "delirious joy" in Bahrain, the death toll keeps climbing in Libya's protests. Moammar Gadhafi's minions killed another 20 people today, bringing the five-day total to at least 104, says Human Rights Watch. Gadhafi has effectively shut off Internet service and forbid media coverage, but witnesses told AP of attacks by police and government loyalists wielding guns, knives, and even anti-aircraft missiles. While the accounts are impossible to verify—and at least one puts the death toll closer to 200—a grim cycle has emerged, reports the New York Times: "Security forces fire on funeral marches, killing more protesters and creating more funerals." In Yemen, meanwhile, President Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces also opened fire on protesters, killing at least one, reports AP.