NATO acknowledged Sunday that an errant missile had destroyed a civilian home in the Libyan capital in the early morning, saying it may have killed civilians. It was the alliance’s first such admission in the three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against the military forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.
Reporters taken to the site and a nearby hospital saw at least five bodies, including those of a baby and a child. Libyan officials said at least four more civilians were killed.
The episode was NATO’s second admission of a mistaken strike in two days. On Saturday, it acknowledged inadvertently hitting a rebel convoy of tanks and military vehicles moving around the front near the eastern oil port of Brega. That strike was at least NATO’s third to accidentally hit rebels.
NATO officials have been talking openly of strains in the Libyan operation. In Washington, the mistaken strikes could bolster Congressional criticisms that the operation is too unfocused or too dependent on ill-equipped European allies.
Read more at source
0 comments:
Post a Comment