OnIslam.net

TRIPOLI – Growing civilian casualties in the NATO-led military operations against Muammar Gaddafi is eroding support for the Western alliance's war against the embattled Libyan leader.

"NATO is endangering its credibility," Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Monday, June 20, before an EU foreign ministers' meeting in Luxembourg to discuss ways to aid the Libyan opposition, Reuters reported.

"We cannot risk killing civilians."

The Libyan government said Monday that at least 19 civilians were killed in a NATO airstrike on the home of one of Gaddafi's top officials.

Libyan officials took reporters to Surman, 70 km (45 miles) west of Tripoli, to the site of a NATO strike on the home of Khouildi Hamidi, a member of Libya's 12-strong Revolutionary Command Council, led by Gaddafi.

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.

The state-run Jana news agency later reported on its website that eight children were among 19 people killed in the attack.

The dead included members of Hamidi's family, it said. The government said Hamidi himself was not hurt.

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.

"This strike will greatly degrade the Gaddafi regime forces' ability to carry on their barbaric assault against the Libyan people," Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard, the Canadian commander of NATO's Libya operation, said in a statement cited by Reuters.

If the Libyan government's account of civilian deaths is confirmed, the incident could further complicate operations of the NATO-led military alliance, starting to feel the strain of a campaign taking longer and costing more than planned.

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 in that incident, and a system failure may have knocked the weapon off course.

Libyan officials say NATO forces have killed more than 700 civilians.

Libya says one of Gaddafi's sons and three of his grandchildren were killed six weeks ago when Gaddafi's Tripoli compound was hit in a NATO attack.

NATO started airstrikes against Gaddafi's troops after the Libyan leader launched a deadly crackdown on protestors demanding an end to his 42-year rule.

But four months into the revolt against his rule, Gaddafi is still holding doggedly onto power despite weeks of NATO strikes on his military and command structures.

The conflict has now entered stalemate, with Gaddafi in control of most of the west of the country, while the opposition is hemmed in to their stronghold in the east and a few pockets in the west.

Losing Support

Frattini expressed concern that NATO was losing the propaganda war in Libya.

"We cannot continue our shortcomings in the way we communicate with the public, which doesn't keep up with the daily propaganda of Gaddafi," he said.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the United States joined NATO in regretting 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.

"It's always an issue in any NATO mission to maintain popular support, to maintain public understanding for why we are there...."

The Arab League, which in March asked the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians, condemned the loss of life in Sunday's incident.

"When the Arab League agreed on the idea of having a no-fly zone over Libya it was to protect civilians," said Deputy Secretary-General Ahmed Ben Helli.

"But when civilians get killed this has to be condemned with the harshest of statements."

NATO continued its airstrikes against Gaddafi's troops on Monday.

A Reuters reporter in central Tripoli said he heard jets overhead around midday, then a distant explosion.

The opposition forces have made slow progress since NATO countries joined the fight three months ago, but are now advancing toward Tripoli from a bastion in Misrata east of the capital and from the Western Mountains region to its southwest.

A child was killed and two others were wounded when three rockets fired by Gaddafi forces hit a built-up area near the port in Misrata on Monday.