Many described a rash of midnight abductions as members of the militia searched from house to house for people who participated in past protests. One man said that five households in his family had been raided the same night. A young man described waking in the middle of the night to see a young neighbor being dragged from his home, women crying in the street around him. A third said he believed 100 of his neighbors had been detained in the past week, some released after a couple of days and others still gone. “Every night it is 10 or 15 houses,” another said.

Even in the mosque’s marble courtyard, some said they feared talking to a foreign journalist. “I am sorry,” one whispered. “I can’t talk to you. I am from here. Everybody knows me. But, really, we don’t like Qaddafi.”

Several said they were incensed that Colonel Qaddafi had said in a recent television interview that the Libyan people loved him. “We want to show that the number of people who hate Qaddafi is more,” one said.

This week, several said, they had planned to pull back or stay in the mosque for a sit-in rather than risk an ambush or shootings at a march toward downtown. “It is impossible to advance here because you are faced with heavy gunfire,” one man said.

Another said the plan had come from Benghazi. “Our government is in Benghazi now for all Libya,” he said.

A plainclothes police officer introduced himself and demanded the names and news organizations of journalists present.