20 More Killed in Libyan Crackdown on Protests

Hospital officials in Libya say at least 20 people were killed Sunday when Libyan security forces again opened fire on anti-government protesters.

Witnesses in Libya's second-largest city, Benghazi, said the security forces shot at mourners attending a Sunday funeral for protesters killed a day before. Security forces also fired Saturday on crowds gathering for the funerals of slain activists.

Earlier Sunday, a U.S.-based rights group (Human Rights Watch) said Libya's death toll from five days of unrest had risen to at least 173.

Sources at hospitals in Benghazi said the crackdown over the past week there has killed at least 200 people and wounded hundreds of others.

U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley says the U.S. is "gravely concerned" by what he called "multiple credible reports" of hundreds killed or injured in protest-related violence.

Meanwhile, the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera says the Libyan government has blocked Al Jazeera's television signal in the country. The channel's coverage has played a big role in protests across the region.

Arab media reports said at least 15 protesters were killed in Saturday's shootings, which some Benghazi residents described as a "massacre." Witnesses said snipers opened fire after the mourners tried to storm a military building.

The demonstrations have been largely confined to Benghazi and other cities in eastern Libya since they began last Tuesday. They represent an unprecedented challenge to the four-decade rule of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, whose supporters have staged small rallies in the capital, Tripoli, in recent days.

There was no independent confirmation of Libyan witnesses' accounts of the violence, as the government has barred local and foreign journalists from covering the unrest.

Libyan authorities also cut off Internet services in the country Saturday, denying cyber activists a key tool to mobilize demonstrators.

Mr. Gadhafi has tried to defuse the protests by doubling the salaries of state employees and releasing 110 suspected Islamic militants. He took power in a 1969 coup and has built his rule on a cult of personality and a network of family and tribal alliances.

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