Tripoli ‘Nato strike kills five’

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    19 June 2011 Last updated at 00:31 ET

    At least five people have died in a Nato air strike that hit a house in the Libyan capital Tripoli, Libyan government officials say.

    The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen saw a three-storey house badly damaged at the scene of the alleged air raid in the city’s Suq Al Juma residential district.

    Our correspondent was later shown five bodies at a Tripoli hospital.

    He says if proved to be a Nato strike, it will raise more questions about the alliance’s mission in Libya.

    There has been no response yet from Nato, but it has acknowledged mistakenly hitting civilian areas in previous bombing raids.

    Our correspondent was taken by Libyan government officials to a Tripoli hospital where he was shown the bodies of a dead woman, a dead man and a dead baby.

    The officials said they were members of a family killed in the alleged Nato air strike.

    Our correspondent was also shown the body of another man and a dead baby.

    He saw two of the bodies earlier at the scene – one being pulled from the rubble and another being placed in an ambulance.

    Seed of hatred

    Libyan officials say Sunday’s attack, in one of the city’s poorer neighbourhoods, happened shortly after midnight.

    Scores of men were working alongside the emergency services, pulling at sections of rubble and looking for bodies.

    Locals said an entire family had been killed, though our correspondent was unable to immediately verify this claim.

    The level of damage, he adds, looked like the aftermath of an air strike, with concrete floors blown out on to the street.

    Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said: “Nato is planting the seed of hatred in the hearts of Libyan people for years to come. They won’t allow foreign armies to decide their future.”

    What started as a peaceful uprising against Col Muammar Gaddafi’s 41-year-rule four months ago has grown into a civil war.

    The rebels now hold a third of the country in the east and pockets in the west, including Misrata, although Tripoli remains under government control.

    Nato has flown more than 10,000 sorties since operations began, including almost 4,000 strike attacks against government targets across Libya.

    On Saturday, Nato said one of its aircraft had mistakenly attacked rebel forces in eastern Libya during an air raid on Thursday.

    Nato said it had hit a column of military vehicles near the oil town of Brega, and that the rebels had said there were injuries but no casualties.

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