SURMAN, Libya: The Libyan government said Monday 15 civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike on the home of one of Muammar Gaddafi's top officials, a day after NATO admitted killing civilians in a separate aerial attack. Libyan officials took reporters to Surman, 70 km west of Tripoli, to the site they said was a NATO air strike on the home of Khouildi Hamidi, a member of Libya's 12-strong Revolutionary Command Council, led by Gaddafi. Rescue teams were looking for survivors while reporters visited the site. Reporters were then taken to a hospital in nearby Sabrata where they were shown nine bodies, including those of two children, plus some body parts, which the Libyan government said were all of people killed in the attack. NATO said it had bombed a “legitimate military target – a command and control node” in the area, and it could not confirm whether civilians had been hurt. It said NATO does not target specific individuals. “This strike will greatly degrade the Gaddafi regime forces' ability to carry on their barbaric assault against the Libyan people,” Lt.-Gen. Charles Bouchard, the Canadian commander of the NATO operation, said in a statement. The Libyan government said Hamidi was unhurt, while three children were among those killed in the early morning strike. NATO acknowledged on Sunday for the first time that it had killed multiple civilians in Libya, when a strike intended to hit a missile site erred and destroyed a house in Tripoli. Bouchard said he regretted the loss of life and that a system failure may have knocked the weapon off course. Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said Monday civilian deaths pose a risk to the NATO-led military alliance. NATO states have been hitting targets in Libya since March 19 in what they say is an operation to protect civilians. “NATO is endangering its credibility; we cannot risk killing civilians,” Frattini told reporters before an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg to discuss ways to aid rebels. The Arab League, which in March asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians, condemned Sunday's loss of life. “When the Arab League agreed on the idea of having a no-fly zone over Libya it was to protect civilians but when civilians get killed this has to be condemned with the harshest of statements,” said Deputy Secretary-General Ahmed Ben Helli. Libyan officials accused NATO of deliberately targeting the population. Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim called Monday's strike on Hamidi's house “a cowardly terrorist act”. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States joined NATO in regreting loss of civilian life. “These missions are extremely difficult. They are extremely dangerous. We faced this situation in Afghanistan, we faced it in the past in Kosovo,” she said.
