Libya says NATO airstrike kills 9 civilians

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The Libyan government accused NATO of killing nine civilians in an airstrike on a residential neighborhood in the capital early Sunday, adding to its charges that the alliance is striking nonmilitary targets.

It was not possible to independently verify the government's account of what happened. 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.

Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi told reporters nine civilians, including two children, were killed in the explosion and said 18 people were wounded. He said the strike was a "deliberate attack on a civilian neighborhood," and follows other alleged targeting of nonmilitary targets such as a hotel, oxygen factory and civilian vehicles.

• PHOTOS: Rebellion in Libya

"The deliberate bombing … is a direct call for all free peoples of the world and for all Muslims to initiate a global jihad against the oppressive, criminal West and never to allow such criminal organizations as NATO to decide the future of other independent and sovereign nations," al-Obeidi said. He did not take questions.

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.

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.

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 in the early hours of Sunday 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 later NATO statement said the incident "is said to have occurred … following a deliberate strike which targeted a missile site operated by pro-Gadhafi forces."

The alliance struck Tripoli 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 were 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 casualties 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-seeking weapons, anything you can imagine," said Mustafa, 30, who was helping drive the wounded from the front.

A medical official in Misrata hospital said that 10 were killed and 54 wounded in clashes Sunday in Dafniya.

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 yards (meters) from each other. Five rebels were killed in the ambush, he said.

Late Saturday, NATO announced that it had mistakenly hit 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.

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