Libyan officials showed reporters five bodies, including two toddlers, they said were among nine civilians killed in a “barbaric” NATO air raid on Sunday, as pressure mounted on the alliance to allow a political solution.
Government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim accused the Western alliance of “deliberately targeting civilians,” insisting there were no military targets anywhere near the residential neighbourhood of Tripoli that was hit.
“NATO is looking into this matter,” said alliance spokesman Wing Commander Mike Bracken in Brussels. “NATO was operating in Tripoli last night, conducting air strikes against a legitimate military target.”
“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,” he added.
If it is confirmed the civilian deaths were caused by NATO, it would be an embarrassment for the alliance which has led the bombing campaign under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians.
Mr. Ibrahim demanded that the alliance end its “aggression” to pave the way for dialogue, speaking just hours after organisations including the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations highlighted the importance of “accelerating the launch of a political process” to end the conflict.
Journalists were taken to the Al-Arada district of Tripoli before 1 a.m. (2300 GMT Saturday) to see rescue teams and bystanders desperately searching for survivors among the debris of a two-storey block of flats.
An AFP correspondent saw two bodies pulled from the rubble.
Journalists were then taken to a Tripoli hospital where they were shown the bodies of a woman and two toddlers who officials said were members of the same family and had died in the raid.
Mr. Ibrahim said four passers-by were also killed, bringing the death toll to nine, and that 18 people were wounded.
“It is another night of massacre, terror and horror at the hands of NATO,” Mr. Ibrahim charged.
Western leaders “are morally and legally responsible for these murders,” he said. “This is not propaganda. It is not something that we can stage.” Libyan officials have been on the defensive over their credibility after showing journalists a little girl in hospital two weeks ago they said was wounded in a NATO air strike. One of the medical staff said she had been injured in a traffic accident.
Aggression
Mr. Ibrahim called on NATO to halt its “aggression” to pave the way for dialogue to end a conflict now in its fifth month. “NATO is very good at attacking and killing people but it is very bad at starting dialogue,” he said.
The alliance has acknowledged mis-hits in the past, mostly involving rebel fighters wrongly identified as loyalist troops. On Saturday, NATO acknowledged that aircraft had hit a rebel column near Brega on the frontline between the rebel-held east and the mainly government-held west on Thursday. In the Berber mountains, an AFP correspondent reported pro-Qadhafi forces in pick-ups arriving outside the rebel-held town of Kikla. Residents there feared renewed clashes if the loyalist troops tried to reopen the rebel-held road, which leads to the garrison town of Bir al-Ghanem on the road to Tripoli.
