Nato denies killing civilians in attack on Gaddafi aide

THE Libyan government has claimed a Nato air strike west of Tripoli on a large family compound belonging to a close associate of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi killed at least 15 people, including three children.

The allegation yesterday came a day after Nato admitted one of its missiles hit a residential area in the west of the city, killing at least nine people, including children.

Col Gaddafi's regime has repeatedly accused Nato of targeting civilians in an attempt to rally support against the alliance's intervention in the country's civil war. Nato insists it tries to avoid killing civilians.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Nato bombs struck the compound belonging to Khoweildi al-Hamidi outside the city of Surman, some 40 miles from Tripoli, at about 4am local time yesterday.

Mr Hamidi is a regime insider who took part in the 1969 coup that brought Col Gaddafi to power. He reportedly commanded a battalion that crushed rebels in the western city of Zawiya in March, and his daughter is married to one of Col Gaddafi's sons, Saadi.

Mr Ibrahim said Mr Hamidi escaped the air strikes unharmed, but that three children, two of them Mr Hamidi's grandchildren, were among the 15 people killed. Officials said he was inside a still-intact building at the time of the strike.

"They (Nato] are targeting civilians. … The logic is intimidation," Mr Ibrahim said. "They want Libyans to give up the fight … they want to break our spirit."

However, a Nato official in Italy said the alliance had not conducted any strikes in that area in the past 24 hours.

Foreign journalists based in the Libyan capital were taken by government officials to the walled compound, where at least two buildings had been blasted to rubble. A pair of massive craters could be seen, and rescue service workers with sniffer dogs were scouring the rubble for people.

Journalists were later taken to a hospital in the nearby city of Sabratha, where medical workers showed them the bodies of about eight to ten people, including those of two children, said to have died in the strike.

Nato, which has a mandate to protect Libyan civilians, has rejected the Libyan government's allegations that it targets civilians. However, mistakes have occurred.

The alliance acknowledged that one of its air strikes on Sunday accidentally struck a residential area in the capital, killing civilians.

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

From their de facto capital of Benghazi, the rebels have taken control of much of the eastern half of the country.

They also control pockets in the west, mainly around the port city of Misrata and in the Nafusa mountains south of Tripoli.

In Luxembourg, EU foreign ministers meeting to discuss the Libyan situation harshly condemned the regime, saying in a statement that "time is not on Gaddafi's side," and the Libyan leader "has lost all legitimacy to remain in power".

The 27 ministers also toughened the EU's sanctions against the regime by adding six port authorities controlled by Col Gaddafi's forces to its asset-freeze list. The ports were not named.

In a similar move, it was reported yesterday that the central bank of the United Arab Emirates ordered a freeze on the accounts of 19 Libyan individuals and institutions while an investigation is under way into possible links to the Gaddafi regime.