NATO strike at Gaddafi compound

NATO carried out missile strikes on targets in the Tripoli area yesterday that appeared to include Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s compound, witnesses said.

Gaddafi has not appeared publicly since April 30 when a NATO air strike on a house in the capital killed his youngest son and three of his grandchildren.

Libyan officials said NATO airstrikes in Tripoli overnight wounded four children and two of them were seriously hurt by flying glass caused by blasts.

“The direction of at least one blast suggests Gaddafi’s compound has been targeted,” said one witness.

The Tripoli blasts occurred against a backdrop of deadlock in an insurgency that aims to end Gaddafi’s 41 years in power and a resulting dilemma for Western powers over whether to offer covert aid to rebels.

Allies including the US, Britain and France face a choice over whether to exploit loopholes in the sanctions regime to help the rebels, analysts and UN diplomats said.

Another option would be to circumvent the sanctions secretly but both courses risk angering Russia and China. They wield UN Security Council vetoes and are increasingly critical of NATO’s operations under a resolution aimed at protecting civilians.

After two months of conflict linked to this year’s uprisings in other Arab countries, rebels hold Benghazi and other towns in the east while the government controls the capital and almost all of the west of the North African state.

Fighting is escalating in the Western Mountains region near Tunisia and rebels on Monday said NATO struck government arms depots southeast of the battleground town of Zintan.

The town was quiet yesterday with no government shelling or NATO air strikes, rebel spokesman Abdulrahman said.

“The revolutionaries (rebels) are combing the area of Awiniyah where the brigades are believed to be positioned,” he said.

The town is 25km east of Zintan.

NATO forces have also struck repeatedly at Misrata, the western city where besieged rebels have clung on for weeks in the face of a ferocious government assault. Hundreds have died in the fighting.

The rebels face a government with superior firepower and resources but a rebel military commander told Al Jazeera television his fighters killed 57 troops and destroyed 17 military vehicles during a major battle west of the insurgent-held city of Ajdabiyah on Monday.

Reuters