“We don’t want anyone except him,” gushed Fatima al-Mishai, 20, who joined the crowds assembled at Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound to offer their services as voluntary human shields against the bombs. “He gave us freedom and everything we need.”

Indeed, the Libyan government has kept average incomes relatively high, while doling out generous social benefits, including health care and education. Even Gaddafi’s opponents, who dare murmur their dissent only out of earshot of regime loyalists, concede that the man who has governed Libya for nearly 42 years does command genuine support.

“Seventy-five percent of the people are against him,” said one dissident, who was in the vanguard of the protest movement that was crushed in Tripoli last month and who agreed to a furtive meeting with journalists in a downtown cafe. “But there are some people who really do love him. They’ve known no one else all their lives. They think he’s in their blood.”