Nato blamed for civilian deaths in Libya

The Libyan government said civilians were killed in a Nato airstrike that hit a residential neighbourhood in Tripoli, adding to charges that the alliance is striking non-military targets.

Journalists based in the Libyan capital were taken by government officials to a neighbourhood where it says the strike occurred shortly after at least one explosion rumbled through the city around 1am.

They were shown a destroyed building that appeared to have been partially under construction as rescue efforts were under way.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the damage was caused by Nato rockets and bombs.

He was not immediately able to provide the number of casualties, but said there were no military facilities anywhere near the damaged building.

"There was intentional and deliberate targeting of the civilian houses," said deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim during a visit to the site shortly after reporters arrived. "This is another sign of the brutality of the West."

Journalists taken to a hospital after seeing the damaged building were shown at least four people said to be killed in the strike, including two young children.

It was not possible to independently verify the government's account of what happened.

Officials increasingly have sought to highlight what they say are attacks on civilian targets by Nato warplanes by taking journalists to visit alleged bombing sites.

Foreign journalists in Tripoli are not allowed to travel and report freely and are almost always shadowed by government minders.

On Friday, prime minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi accused Nato of a "new level of aggression" in recent days, and claimed that the military alliance intentionally targeted civilian buildings, including a hotel and a university.

He has called on the United Nations to take action to stop Nato's daily bombing runs.

The most recent figures from Libya's Health Ministry show 856 civilians have been killed in Nato airstrikes since they began in March.

The figure could not be independently confirmed. Previous government-announced tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.

Nato, which has a mandate to protect Libyan civilians, has been ramping up the pressure on Muammar Gaddafi's regime as a four-month uprising devolved into a civil war. It rejects allegations it targets civilians.

"We are conducting operations with utmost care and precision to avoid civilian casualties. Civilian casualties figures mentioned by the Libyan regime are pure propaganda," Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said yesterday.

Late yesterday, Nato announced that it had mistakenly struck a column of Libyan rebel vehicles in an airstrike near an eastern oil town two days earlier and expressed regret for any casualties that might have resulted.

The alliance has accidentally hit rebel forces before in its air campaign to protect civilians in the civil war between Gaddafi's military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power.

The rebels have also complained that Nato's strikes have not helped them gain decisive momentum against the Libyan leader's better trained and equipped military, which still has firm control over most of western Libya. The rebels control much of the east.

The alliance statement gave no figures on casualties from Thursday's airstrike, but said it regretted "any possible loss of life or injuries caused by this unfortunate incident".

Nato said its forces spotted a column of military vehicles near the frequent flashpoint town of Brega where forces loyal to Gaddafi had recently been operating and hit them because they believed they posed a threat to civilians.

International military forces have had some trouble in hitting government troops because of their proximity to civilians. Gaddafi's troops have also used civilian vehicles, making them difficult to distinguish from rebel forces.

A doctor in the nearby city of Ajdabiya said the bodies of four rebel fighters were brought to his hospital around the time of Thursday's strike, but it was not possible to confirm whether they were killed in the bombardment.

A rebel military spokesman, Abdel-Rahman Abu-Sin, said that they appreciated Nato's efforts and understood the difficulty in differentiating between the two sides along shifting front lines.

Thursday's airstrike was similar to one on April 7 in which Nato hit a convoy of rebel tanks, killing at least five fighters, as the rebels were closing in on Brega. Nato officials said at the time they did not know the rebels had any tanks, a statement that raised eyebrows as footage of the fighters with tanks had been on YouTube for weeks.

A week earlier, Nato mistakenly targeted rebels as they tried to retake Brega. The rebels said 13 of their fighters were killed in that attack.