Tripoli , Libya ( CNN ) -- At first glance , `` Mahmoud '' would seem the perfect candidate to be a supporter of Moammar Gadhafi . He has prospered during the Libyan leader 's 41-year reign , first as a professional and later taking care of his deceased father 's businesses . But , as with many things in Tripoli , a first glance can be deceiving . `` Ninety percent of the people in Tripoli hate Gadhafi , '' Mahmoud told me over sips of espresso at a corner coffee shop this weekend . `` All his people do is tell lies . If anyone tells you different they are just afraid . '' CNN is withholding his real name for his own safety . On an almost hourly basis , regime officials and government minders tell foreign journalists that Tripoli is a stronghold of Gadhafi and that dissent has vanished in recent months . CNN , like other media here , is under severe government restrictions . But I recently managed to slip away from government minders to talk directly to several Libyans . And according to several eyewitness accounts , major demonstrations were held against Libya 's strongman as recently as last week . And in the Souq al-Juma neighborhood of the capital , where anti-Gadhafi protests first erupted in February , the government 's propaganda bubble is quickly burst . While international journalists including me were ferried by government minders to a pro-Gadhafi rally at Green Square on Friday afternoon , multiple sources tell CNN that several Tripoli neighborhoods were wracked by running battles between protesters and security forces . `` They were protesting right around the corner . They streamed out of a mosque and onto the small square , '' said Mahmoud . `` Almost immediately Gadhafi forces fired at them with live rounds . '' Mahmoud and other sources say that the group was several hundred strong . He claims that three people were killed and that the area was put under lockdown by government security . Other people in the area confirmed the death toll , but it is impossible for CNN to independently verify this account . The government has repeatedly denied any anti-Gadhafi protests in Tripoli in recent weeks , including on Friday . A taxi driver in his 20s also said that he took part in one of the protests in Souq al-Juma on Friday . CNN is calling him Jamal -- not his real name -- to protect his safety . `` We came out after afternoon prayers , '' he said , `` we were unarmed and peaceful and they just shot at us . '' He says he a bullet grazed his arm . Jamal says that unlike the rebels in the East , they do n't have easy access to weapons to fight . But he says , `` I am not afraid . Even though we were unarmed , I am doing this for the future of my country . '' Another protest was fired upon in a seaside neighborhood of the capital , Jamal says , citing friends who said they were at the demonstration . Speaking to journalists in Tripoli is risky . Gadhafi 's vast spying network means that almost anyone on the street could be an informer or worse . Residents of Souq al-Juma say that hundreds , if not thousands , have been summarily arrested by the dreaded intelligence `` brigades . '' They are never heard from again . And it seems nowhere is safe . Jamal says that recently , a family he knows pinned up a rebel flag out of sight in their home . Somehow the intelligence services found out . `` They stormed into the house , pulled down the flag , and arrested every man in that house , '' says Jamal . But the worst indignity of all , people here say , is they ca n't bury their dead . `` The Gadhafi men . They come out and shoot you like cats , '' Mahmoud told me . `` they hold their guns over you like this and shoot you like cats . We are not people to them . '' Regime officials will often then take the dead away , he says , not affording people a proper burial . `` If we bury them , we must do it in secret . ''
BBC 's David McKenzie moved away from Libya government pressure to talk to ordinary people . ` ` Ninety percent of the people hate Gadhafi , '' a businessman says . Security forces battle protesters right behind journalists ' offices , a taxi driver says . The government denies there are anti - Gadhafi protests in the capital .