Libyan Civilians Said Killed in NATO Airstrike

By Adam Schreck and Hadeel Al-Shalchi, Associated Press

19 June 11

he Libyan government accused NATO of bombing a residential neighborhood in the capital and killing civilians early Sunday, adding to its charges that the alliance is striking non-military targets. At least four people, including two children, were reported killed.

It was not possible to independently verify the government's account of what happened and NATO said it was investigating. The alliance has repeatedly insisted it tries to avoid killing civilians.

Whether they are eventually confirmed or not, the allegations are likely to provide supporters of Moammar Gadhafi's regime a fresh rallying point against the international intervention in Libya's civil war.

Shortly after the airstrikes before dawn Sunday, journalists based in the Libyan capital were rushed by government officials to the destroyed building, which appeared to have been partially under construction. Reporters were escorted back to the site during the day, where children's toys, teacups and dust-covered mattresses could be seen amid the rubble.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim wasn't immediately able to provide the number of casualties, but said there were no military facilities anywhere near the damaged building.

Journalists were shown at least four people said to have been killed in the strike, including the two young children. Foreign reporters in Tripoli are not allowed to travel and report freely and are almost always shadowed by government minders.

Salem Ali Garadi, 51, who said his brother and sister were among the victims, said five people were killed.

"There was intentional and deliberate targeting of the civilian houses," deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim told reporters at the site. "This is another sign of the brutality of the West."

Libya's Health Ministry says 856 civilians have been killed in NATO airstrikes since they began in March. The figure could not be independently confirmed. Previous government tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.

NATO acknowledged its planes hit targets in Tripoli and said it was investigating whether it was responsible for the alleged strike on the house.

"NATO confirms that it was operating in Tripoli last night, conducting airstrikes against a legitimate military target," Wing commander Mike Bracken said in a statement Sunday afternoon. He said the alliance was looking into the reports.

"NATO deeply regrets any civilian loss of life during this operation and would be very sorry if the review of this incident concluded it to be a NATO weapon," Bracken said.

A NATO mission spokesman in Naples, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with alliance regulations, said earlier that the Gadhafi regime has made false claims in the past about NATO having caused civilian deaths.

The alliance appeared to strike the capital again Sunday afternoon. A number of explosions could be heard in the city, and smoke could be seen rising over the southern part of the capital.

While NATO warplanes have stepped up their campaign against Gadhafi's regime over the past week, fighting has intensified between rebels and government troops outside the port city of Misrata, the main rebel stronghold in western Libya.

For weeks, the rebels had been bottled up in the city, some 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Tripoli. The eastern third of the country is under rebel control from their de facto capital, Benghazi.

On Sunday, Gadhafi's forces unleashed a heavy barrage of Grad rockets and mortars on the rebel front lines in Dafniya, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Misrata. Muthana Issa, an official at Misrata's Hikma hospital, said four people had been killed and 16 wounded in the early hours of the bombardment.

As the barrage continued into the afternoon, a steady stream of pickup trucks rushed the wounded to a field hospital in Dafniya, where medics and volunteers quickly unloaded the dead from the back of the pickups and placed the wounded on stretchers. One truck pulled up with three bodies covered in blood.

"They are shelling us really badly today with everything - mortars, grads, heat-sensing weapons, anything you can imagine," said Mustafa, 30, who was helping drive the wounded from the front.

Doctors at the field hospital said they had stopped counting the wounded coming in because there were too many.

Gadhafi's forces also ambushed a group of rebels near Dafniya early Sunday with AK-47s and heavy machine guns, according to rebel fighter Mohammed Khalil. He said the fighting was intense, with the two sides as close as 50 meters from each other. Five rebels were killed in the ambush, he said.

Late on Saturday, NATO announced that it had mistakenly struck a column of Libyan rebel vehicles in an airstrike near an eastern oil town two days earlier and expressed regret for any casualties that might have resulted.

The alliance has accidentally hit rebel forces before in its air campaign to protect civilians in the civil war between Gadhafi's military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States launched the first strikes against Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO, which is joined by a number of Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31.

Al-Shalchi reported from Dafniya. Associated Press writer Don Melvin in Brussels contributed to this report.