and said, you know, maybe i should have my brain donated and he decided that, you know, before his untimely death at the age of 45. that s amazing. all right. jason carroll, thanks so much. you bet. top stories right now as we cross the half hour. you re again feeling the pinch of rising gas prices. the national average $3.51, that s up a penny from yesterday. the highest that gas prices have been in some time. but really in california right now dealing with $3.90 a gallon. also, continuing to follow the developments in libya. they are fast-moving. the battle for a couple of cities continues. gadhafi is launching attacks and the government in charge of the all-important city of misrata in libya and also a major economic hub. but the opposition forces celebrating saying they have fought off some of the air strikes and tanks there. meanwhile the u.n. with an ominous warning that more carnage could come in the days ahead as these battles get
families have been fleeing to this town. meanwhile, gadhafi counter attacks going on in misrata, about 200 miles from the capital of tripoli. misrata is important. the third largest city there and an important economic hub. the opposition has been celebrating. gadhafi and his government saying something different. take a look at what you re seeing here. people have been celebrating the victories for gadhafi. saying they believe his claim that foreigners and al qaeda are responsible. nic robertson live for us in tripoli this morning. hello to you again. there s been so much talk about the fear of civil war. are we there yet? if not, how close are we? reporter: well, when i interviewed moammar gadhafi s son on friday night, he told me the country s not civil war. i said what is civil war if it s not what we re seeing? he say this is is when the people begin to fight the people. and everyone in this country is
hospital says all of this fighting has forced close to 200,000 workers to flee the country going to hoer places like tunisia and egypt trueing to g trying to get away. nic, hello to you once again. can you help us all get a better handle on just what parts of the country are under government control, what parts are under opposition control. because the two sides are putting out conflicting reports. reporter: they are. and it s not clear why the gadhafi government here is being so ambitious in what it s telling its people. i ll give you a couple of for instances here to break them down. they said they controlled the city just to the west of the capital here. zawiya they now control misrata, and ras lanuf. we now know zawiya is still battling with rebels, misrata,
circulation is if this conflict drag on, both sides could bring in more weapons like this from outside libya. whenever this ends, those weapons could be sold off. brian todd, cnn, washington. with the fighting in libya intensifying, talk of a civil war is growing. let s bring back our senior state department producer elias labbatt. how well armed are the rebels? and what would that mean for colonel gadhafi? as we heard from brian s piece just now, the rebels do have some sophisticated weaponry, a lot of the opposition, as we spoke a few minutes ago, are former military officials that have brought some weapons as they defected. they have these shoulder missiles. they have these anti-fire missiles. and the concern is right now that this could dampen the will in a little bit of the international community to intervene. because if this opposition is armed, if there s a prolonged struggle, then we re talking about a civil war. and so if these people are armed and are fighting gadhafi, i
if the united states actually sends troops to libya, they will make kiss and make up with moammar gadhafi and fight the americans to the last man, so it s a very touchy topic, the whole idea of foreign military involvement in what is essentially a local revolt against moammar gadhafi. and finally, ben, the forces who are fighting gadhafi, gadhafi s troops, are these former libyan soldiers who have basically gone to the other side, or are they totally inexperienced in these kinds of military-related matters? well, there s a fair number of soldiers who have come over to decide the opposition, but really the majority are these guys that have no experience whatsoever in military affairs. they don t really know how to use the weapons. there s a lot of fumbling and trying to make them work, and i ve been watching some of these