Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight on, die a martyr

CAIRO (AP) --  Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi vows to fight on and die a "martyr," calling on his supporters to take back the streets from protesters demanding his ouster, shouting and pounding his fist in a furious speech Tuesday on state TV.

Gadhafi, swathed in brown robes and turban, spoke from a podium set up in the entrance of a bombed out building that appeared to be his Tripoli residence hit by U.S. airstrikes in the 1980s and left unrepaired as a monument of defiance.

Shouting, he declared himself "a warrior" and proclaimed, "Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world."

"I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents ... I will die as a martyr at the end."

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)