The son of Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi has said his family will stay in Libya at all costs despite a bloody uprising shaking his father's regime, in a television interview aired here Friday.

"Our plan is to live and die in Libya," Seif al-Islam Kadhafi told Turkey's CNN Turk news channel when asked whether his family had a "plan B" in the face of the simmering turmoil in the north African country.

Speaking with a voiceover translation to Turkish, Kadhafi's son admitted the regime had lost grip of eastern Libya, but said the authorities would soon regain control of the region.

"There are over two million people in this area, the number of terrorists is 200 or 300 at most. People call us and beg for help. ... We cannot allow a handful of terrorists to control that part of Libya and its people," he said.

"Not the army but the whole nation will resolve this problem," he said when asked whether the military could attack the flashpoint city of Benghazi.

Seif al-Islam also targeted the media and especially Arab news channel Al Jazeera for what he called "lies" on civillan deaths and the activities of African mercenaries helping the regime.

"All fabricated news come from one channel, Al Jazeera. We know the reason," he said, accusing the channel of "supporting" terrorist groups.

He blamed "small terrorist groups" for provoking the turmoil, insisting that the Kadhafi family had no problem with street demonstrations.

"Street protests, peaceful demonstrations, political demands ... these are acceptable. ... Our problem is armed groups. ... This is the greatest problem. Our problem is not political demands," he said.

He said insurgent groups in the cities of Zawiya and Misurata stole army tanks and possessed guns and ammunition.

"As government, we do not fight against our people, we fight against those groups," he said.

Asked whether his father planned to bomb oil refineries if the situation got worse, he said: "We will never destroy oil. It belongs to the people."

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