Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi escaped a NATO missile strike in Tripoli that killed one of his sons and three young grandchildren, a government spokesman said early Sunday. Hours later, Gaddafi’s forces shelled a besieged rebel port in a sign that the air strike had not forced a change in regime tactics.
NATO’s attack on a Gaddafi family compound in a residential area of Tripoli late Saturday signaled escalating pressure on the Libyan leader who has tried to crush an armed rebellion that erupted in mid-February. Libyan officials denounced the strike as an assassination attempt and a violation of international law.
It also drew criticism from Russia, which accused the alliance of going beyond its U.N. mandate to protect Libyan civilians by trying to kill Gaddafi. “More and more facts indicate that the aim of the anti-Libyan coalition is the physical destruction of Gaddafi,” said Konstantin Kosachyov, a Russian lawmaker who often serves as a mouthpiece for the Kremlin’s views on foreign affairs.
The alliance acknowledged that it had struck a “command and control building,” but insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Gaddafi’s systematic attacks on the population.
“It was not targeted against any individual,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said Sunday, adding that the report of the deaths remained unconfirmed.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, without confirming fatalities, also told the British Broadcasting Corporation that the strike was in line with the U.N. mandate to prevent “a loss of civilian life by targeting Gaddafi’s war-making machine.”
The attack struck the house of one of Gaddafi’s younger sons, Seif al-Arab, when the Libyan leader and his wife were inside, said Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim. Seif al-Arab, 29, and three of Gaddafi’s grandchildren, all younger than 12, were killed.
