Qaddafi Son And Possibly Grandchildren Killed In NATO Airstrike
May 1st, 2011
I don't usually pick up news from the Times. It may be true or it may not. At this time there is a question as to the veracity of the story. If true the NATO assault on the Qaddafi family is reprehensible and barbaric. How is this protecting civilian lives? By killing civilians they are going to save civilians? It is the same twisted logic that allowed the victors in World War Two drop atomic bombs on Japan and firebomb Dresden and Hamburg. This is certainly not the way to protect the lives of civilians. It may be the way to prosecute a war, but that is not what the mandate states from the UN. The mandate allows bombing to protect civilians and there is no mandate to take sides or to prosecute a war against Qaddafi.
What we are seeing is a clear violation of the UN mandate and a real move on the part of the coalition to kill the leadership of the government of Libya. This is regime change, plain and simple and it is being done under false pretenses. The USA should withdraw all support for this war against Qaddafi. We have no real interest in Libya and sticking our nose in other people's business is simply asking for a bruising. If the Europeans want to get a better deal for Libyan oil through regime change, that is their business. Although using the UN for cover is illegitimate and should be condemned. Personally I think this whole mess stinks of international gangsterism. At least when the Soviet Union was around the west would think twice before attacking a third world country.
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From New York Times
Qaddafi Is Said to Survive NATO Airstrike That Kills Son
Libyan government officials gave a tour of the house they said was hit by a NATO airstrike in Tripoli late Saturday night.
By KAREEM FAHIM and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: April 30, 2011
BENGHAZI, Libya — The government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi said he survived an airstrike in Tripoli late Saturday night that killed one of his sons and three grandchildren, in the sharpest intensification yet of the NATO air campaign intended to pressure the Libyan leader from power.
The son, Seif al-Arab Muammar el-Qaddafi, 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 Qaddafi 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 the colonel 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 Colonel Qaddafi, and some have suggested it might not be very easy. But frustrated by the evasion and resilience of Colonel Qaddafi'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 Qaddafi family deaths but called them unconfirmed. He added: "All NATO's targets are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Qaddafi 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 Qaddafi 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 Colonel Qaddafi has survived such a close call. In 1986, the United States struck his compound in retaliation for a terrorist attack on a German nightclub frequented by American service members. Colonel Qaddafi has incorporated his survival into his cult of personality, preserving the wreckage of the building as a "Museum of Resistance" and erecting a statue of a giant fist grabbing an American warplane.
Although several of Colonel Qaddafi's seven sons and one daughter play major roles in the Libyan economy and government (including an older brother with a similar name, Seif al-Islam el-Qaddafi), 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 Colonel Qaddafi'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 Colonel Qaddafi to win sympathy. Ramadan el-Sheikhy, who said his brother was killed in one of Colonel Qaddafi's prisons, said any sympathy was misplaced. "I was truly happy at the news," he said. "Hopefully, he felt the pain of having a relative killed."
Earlier Saturday, NATO officials had rejected an offer by Colonel Qaddafi to call a cease-fire and negotiate as false. The proposal was delivered in a rambling and often defiant speech, broadcast over Libyan state television, in which Colonel Qaddafi insisted he would never leave Libya.
"Come France, Italy, U.K., America, come, we'll negotiate with you," Colonel Qaddafi said. "You lie and say I'm killing my own people. Show us the bodies."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/world/africa/01libya.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=
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From Al Arabiya News
Qaddafi's claims that NATO strike killed grandsons appears false, but son is dead
Sunday, 01 May 2011
A crater, which the Libyan government said was caused by coalition air strikes on the General Assembly, is seen at an area in Tripoli. (File Photo)
By MUSTAPHA AJBAILI
Al Arabiya with Agencies
The claim that Muammar Qaddafi's three grandchildren were killed in an airstrike conducted by NATO late Saturday is not true, an Al Arabiya source has revealed. A source close to the Qaddafi family has confirmed the death of Colonel Qaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab, in the airstrike but has denied the story that Mr. Qaddafi's three grandsons were killed.
Government spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, said that NATO attacked the house of Seif al-Arab Qaddafi, 29, with "full power".
Colonel Qaddafi and his wife were in the building that was bombed, but were not harmed, Mr. Ibrahim said. He added that other people—whom he did not identify—were killed or wounded in what he said was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country.
Mr. Ibrahim later said intelligence on Colonel Qaddafi's whereabouts seemed to be leaked to NATO.
"They knew about him being there, or expected him for some reason," the spokesman said.
NATO, however, denied it was targeting Colonel Qaddafi or his family but said it had carried out an airstrike on a military post in Tripoli.
NATO continued its precision strikes against regime military installations in Tripoli overnight, including striking a known command and control building in the Bab al-Aziziya neighborhood shortly after 18:00 GMT Saturday evening, the alliance said in a statement.
Lieut. Gen. Charles Bouchard of Canada, NATO's commander of Libya operations, said the target was part of a strategy to hit command centers that threaten civilians.
"All NATO's targets are military in nature … We do not target individuals," General Bouchard said in a statement.
Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, meanwhile, said NATO's targeting policy in Libya was in line with a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing the campaign.
Mr. Cameron refused to comment on what he said was an unconfirmed report from the Libyan regime that a NATO bombing raid overnight Saturday killed Mr. Qaddafi's youngest son, Seif al-Arab, 29, and three of the colonel's grandchildren.
Mr. Saif al-Arab is one of Colonel Qaddafi's less prominent sons, with a limited role in the power structure. Mr. Ibrahim described him as a man who had studied in Germany. Several news reports, however, characterized Saif as a black sheep of the family who had been involved in scraps with the German police. In one incident that was cited by the international press, he was reported to have had an altercation with bouncers at a German nightclub.
The grandchildren killed were pre-teens, Mr. Ibrahim said.
Qaddafi has been known to sire a great many children, and no reliable count exists. News sources have said that his personal life is very colorful. Female foreign correspondents that have interviewed Mr. Qaddafi over the years have reported that he would frequently offer them demonstrations of his sexual prowess.
Mr. Qaddafi's announcements concerning the alleged deaths of family members at the hands of foreign powers sometimes do not hold up to subsequent scrutiny.
For example, in 1986 it was claimed that his adopted daughter Hana died in 1986 by a US air strike launched in response to alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing of a Berlin disco frequented by US military personnel. However, many Libyans subsequently said that she had been spotted in Libya after the claim. The truth about Hana's death remains a mystery.
Libyans generally do not trust this sort of information anymore, a source close to the Qaddafi family said to Al Arabiya.
Revising history about his family members is something that has happened before as far as Colonel Qaddafi is concerned.
After he took the power in the late 1960s, Mr. Qaddafi ordered the transfer of his father's body to the Martyr's Cemetery in Tripoli from a private graveyard. All official envoys to Libya are taken to visit his grave to pay their respects to Colonel Qaddafi's father, as he is now a symbol of resistance against Italian occupation.
Libyan unofficial historians say, however, that they don't have sufficient information that could lead them to believe that Mr. Qaddafi's father, Hamid Abouminiar, a nomad, was at all involved in the resistance.
The appearance of an assassination attempt against Mr. Qaddafi is likely to lead to accusations that the British-and French-led strikes are overstepping the UN mandate to protect civilians.
"I am aware of unconfirmed media reports that some of Mr. Qaddafi's family members may have been killed," said General Bouchard. "We regret all loss of life."
Left unsaid was the fact that journalists in Tripoli were not shown bodies of the deceased. Some observers questioned the veracity of Mr. Ibrahim's announcement, suggesting that it could have been a ploy to elicit sympathy for the beleaguered Mr. Qaddafi.
The announcements about the alleged deaths of Mr. Qaddafi's family members came on a day when pro-democracy rebels and NATO rejected yet another offer by the Libyan leader for talks to end the crisis.
NATO and the Libyan Transitional Opposition Council dismissed the call and insisted that Mr. Qaddafi cease attacks on civilians first.
In a televised speech on Saturday, Colonel Qaddafi said that NATO must abandon all hope of the departure of Muammar Qaddafi.
"I have no official functions to give up: I will not leave my country and will fight to the death," he said.
The speech was billed as one marking the centenary of a battle against Italian occupation forces. Contemporary Italy is part of a NATO military campaign against Colonel Qaddafi's forces.
"We are ready to talk with France and the United States, but with no preconditions," Mr. Qaddafi said.
"We will not surrender, but I call on you to negotiate. If you want petrol, we will sign contracts with your companies—it is not worth going to war over," Colonel Qaddafi said. "Between Libyans, we can solve our problems without being attacked, so pull back your fleets and your planes."
"The regime has announced ceasefires several times before and continued attacking cities and civilians … Any ceasefire must be credible and verifiable," a NATO official told Reuters.
Weeks of NATO air strikes have failed to dislodge the Libyan leader, but have instead created a stalemate on a war Colonel Qaddafi initially looked to have been winning. But the military situation is fluid now, with government forces held at bay in the east and around the besieged city of Misrata, while fighting rebels for control of the western mountains.
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/05/01/147366.html
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