Opponents of Moamer Gaddafi's 's regime appeared firmly in control of the coastal east of Libya on Wednesday, with government soldiers switching sides to join the uprising.

An AFP news team travelling into Libya saw rebels -- many of them armed -- all along the highway that hugs close to the Mediterranean from the Egyptian border to Tobruk city.

Local residents said that in Bayda city, militia men loyal to Gaddafi's had been executed -- a measure of the violence that has gripped the oil-producing east of the country.

Residents also told AFP that the anti-Gaddafi movement was in firm control from the Egyptian border through Tobruk and Libya's second city Benghazi until Ajdabiya, further west along the coast.

Soldiers in the east were declaring their support for the uprising, the residents said, but the regime asserted it was still in control via a text message sent on the Libyan national mobile telephone network.

"God give victory to our leader and the people," the text message said, promising a credit in cellphone time if it was forwarded to other mobile telephone users.