Gaddafi son,3 grandchildren killed in NATO airstrike

The son,Seif al-Arab,29,and the grandchildren,all said to be younger than 12,were possibly the first confirmed casualties in the airstrikes on the Libyan capital. And while the deaths could not be independently verified,the campaign against Libya’s most densely populated areas raised new questions about how broadly NATO is interpreting its United Nations mandate to protect civilians.

It is the second airstrike in seven days to hit a location intimately close to the Libyan leader,following a midnight attack last week that destroyed an office building in his compound where he and his aides sometimes work.

In a news conference early Sunday morning in Tripoli,a Gaddafi government spokesman called the strike an illegal attack. “This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country,” said the spokesman,Moussa Ibrahim. “This is not permitted by international law. It is not permitted by any moral code or principle.” He said that Gaddafi and his wife,who were staying at the house along with “friends and family”,were not hurt.

American and NATO officials have said they are not seeking to kill Gaddafi,and some have suggested it might not be very easy. But frustrated by the evasion and resilience of Gaddafi’s military,NATO has pledged to step up its strikes on the broader instruments of his power,including state television facilities and command centers in the capital.

In a news release,the NATO mission’s operational commander,Lt Gen Charles Bouchard,said he was aware of the reports of Gaddafi family deaths but called them unconfirmed. He added: “All NATO’s targets are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gaddafi regime’s systematic attacks on the Libyan population and populated areas.

We do not target individuals.” A NATO official in Naples,Italy,reached by e-mail and responding on condition of anonymity,said that allied planners had not known Gaddafi family members were in the building that was attacked,which the official described as a command and control center. The official would not specify the nationality of the aircraft or pilots that carried out the strike.

In a video broadcast by the satellite channel Al Jazeera,Libyan officials showed reporters what they said was the destroyed house,a large crater,crumbled concrete and twisted metal,and someone dusting off what appeared to be an unexploded bomb.

It is not the first time Gaddafi has survived such a close call. In 1986,the US struck his compound in retaliation for a terrorist attack on a German nightclub frequented by American service members.

Although several of Gaddafi’s seven sons and one daughter play major roles in the Libyan economy and government,the son reported killed had been considered a black sheep,believed to spend much of his time in Munich. Many Libyans said they had never seen his picture. In 2007,the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that he had been briefly detained by the Munich police after getting into a fight with a nightclub bouncer; no charges were filed.

In Benghazi,the de facto rebel capital in eastern Libya,and in Misurata,a western city that Gaddafi’s forces have besieged for months,celebratory gunfire rang out and explosions could be heard.

But even then,doubts lingered in Benghazi about whether the news was true: in interviews,residents said they were happy but suspected a ploy by Gaddafi to win sympathy.