LONDON (AFP) - Brent oil prices soared above $105 per barrel on Monday, striking a fresh two-year peak as deadly violence in Libya fuelled concerns over spreading unrest in Arab producer states, analysts said

In late morning deals, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April surged to $105.08 per barrel, hitting the highest level since September 25, 2008, before pulling back slightly to $104.53, up $2.01 from Friday's closing level.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for March, known as West Texas Intermediate, hit as high as $89.50. It later stood at $89.14, up $2.94 from Friday.

"Violence in Libya is the main driver of the price rise," said Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch.

"An influential tribal leader has threatened to cease oil shipments to the West within 24 hours if the violence against protesters does not end.

"OPEC member Libya produces 1.6 million barrels of crude oil a day, with about 1.1 million barrels a day being exported. Brent is likely to benefit more than WTI from this supply risk."

Libya faces civil war and "rivers of blood," the son of its leader Moamer Kadhafi warned on Monday, as a brutal crackdown failed to stop an unprecedented popular uprising from reaching the capital.

With gunfire crackling in the streets of Tripoli, and Human Rights Watch putting the death toll at 233 since Thursday, Saif al-Islam Kadhafi vaguely promised reforms as he condemned the revolt as a foreign plot.

Libya's elder and famously mercurial Kadhafi, 68, the longest-serving leader in the Arab world, remained out of sight.

Oil breached $104 last week on escalating tensions in the key oil-supplying Middle East and North Africa region.

Norwegian energy giant Statoil on Monday said it had begun evacuating its non-Libyan staff working in the country, which has been rocked by a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters.

"Our local headquarters (in Tripoli) is closed," company spokesman Baard Glad Pedersen told AFP.