TRIPOLI, Libya—Nato said on Sunday that it was probably responsible for an air strike in a densely populated Tripoli neighborhood that Libyan authorities said killed nine people and injured 18.
The early-morning air strike destroyed an apartment building, crushing residents beneath tons of debris while they were sleeping, Libyan authorities said. Half a dozen other homes on the quiet street were also damaged.
Nato said “there may have been a weapons system failure which may have caused a number of civilian casualties.” A military missile site was the intended target of the air raid, Nato said, but “one weapon” apparently went astray.
“Nato regrets the loss of innocent civilian lives and takes great care in conducting strikes against a regime determined to use violence against its own citizens,” said Canadian Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of the Libya campaign. Investigators were still “determining the specifics of this event,” Bouchard said.
Despite repeated Libyan government allegations of bomb-related carnage, this is the first time Nato acknowledged culpability for civilian deaths in its 11-week bombing campaign over regime-controlled territory. Nato is bombing Libya under the authority of a United Nations Security Council mandate to protect civilians during the rebellion against President Muammar Qaddafi.
Late Sunday, Qaddafi sent a message to all members of the UN Security Council, holding them responsible “for this methodical extermination process,” the state news agency Jana reported.
The Libyan government, capitalizing on the public relations value of a Nato mistake, bused journalists to the bomb site early Sunday as victims were still being pulled from the rubble.
Journalists, whose movements are tightly controlled here, were later taken to a hospital to see five of the dead, including two children, one a 9-month-old girl clad only in her diaper. Later on Sunday, journalists were again brought to the bomb site.
Nato’s mission has become a protracted campaign despite early assertions that the effort would last “days, not weeks,” in the words of President Barack Obama.
The mission began with a US-led alliance of Western nations on March 19, but Nato assumed control on March 31. Its planes have relentlessly bombed Libya ever since, raining tons of bombs and missiles on Libya.
Nato has denied trying to assassinate Qaddafi, though his compound has been repeatedly targeted and Libyan officials say his son and three grandchildren were killed in an April bombing. After more than 11,500 Nato sorties, Qaddafi’s government still controls the capital and much of western Libya. Rebels control in the eastern third of the nation and several pockets in the west. Libyan officials said Sunday’s raid demonstrates how the stepped-up Nato air campaign is recklessly targeting civilians, perhaps in a desperate bid to sow popular discord with Qaddafi.
“We have noticed that Nato’s aggression is taking a completely different turn,” said Mussa Ibrahim, chief government spokesman, who alleged that cases of civilian casualties had gone from “collateral damage” to “direct hits.”
Libya’s foreign minister, Abdulati Alobidi, called for a “global jihad” against “the oppressive, criminal West.”
Nato denies targeting civilians and says “every mission is planned and executed with tremendous care to avoid civilian casualties,” according to Sunday’s statement.
But alliance officials have charged that the Libyan government is using civilian facilities, including mosques and children’s parks, to camouflage weaponry, such as mobile rocket launchers. The regime has also switched much of its motorized force from tanks and armored vehicles to pickups that are harder for Nato to pick out as military targets, Nato said.
