Update at 9:49 a.m. ET: At one point, Moammar Gadhafi compares his rule to that of the queen of England, who has been on the throne for 52 years but does not wield real political power.

"Queen Elizabeth has ruled longer than I have and nothing has happened to her, no one has bothered her," he says, speaking by phone on state TV.

"I have become more of a symbolic leader. ... I don't have the same authority to impose or force rules upon the people," Gadhafi says.

He says Libya has institutions that handle issues of the state "and those should look after these issues."

"I don't particularly care about it and I am not interested," he says. "It is not a matter of authority, this is an international terrorism link that has spread all over the world."

He ended the conversation by simply hanging up the phone, which went to a dial tone.

Update at 9:22 am. ET: Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, speaking on Libyan state TV, says the protesters have been drugged and sent into the streets. He says al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden has given them weapons.

"It is obvious that this is run by al-Qaeda, " he says. "Those armed youngsters, our children, are incited by people who are wanted by America and the Western world."

"People were getting all their daily needs ... why did you have to get involved with the (Osama) bin-Laden ideology?" he asks.

He says the opposition amounts to "only a few in numbers."

"Get control of your children, keep them at home," he says, speaking to Libyan parents. "Those young teenagers are carrying machine guns, and they feel trigger-happy. They shoot, especially when they get stoned with drugs."

"Get control of your children," Gadhafi says.

Unlike his earlier this week, state TV today is only broadcasting Gadhafi's voice, and not showing him speaking.

Earlier posting: Libyan troops opened fire on thousands of protesters in the coastal town Zawiyah, an oil terminal 30 miles west of the capital, Tripoli, news agencies report.

Al-Jazeera spoke by phone with one resident who reports that Libyan troops fired on 3,000 largely unarmed protesters and that as many as 100 people were killed.

Reuters also reports heavy fighting in the town, quoting witnesses as saying people in civilian clothes were running through the streets with guns.

The Associated Press quotes one witness as saying that a day earlier an envoy from Gadhafi had come to the city and warned protesters, "Either leave or you will see a massacre."

In another major development, Ahmed Gadhaf al-Dam, a Gadhafi cousin and one of his closest aides, announced that he has defected to Egypt to protest the bloody crackdown in what he called "grave violations to human rights and human and international laws," the AP reports.