Jeremy Sapienza / AntiWar.com & Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com – 2011-08-09 12:51:42
NATO Strike Kills 7 at Libya Hospital
Jeremy Sapienza / AntiWar.com
(July 25, 2011) — A NATO airstrike killed seven people in a hospital in Zlitan, western Libya, on Monday, according to locals and government officials. Medical equipment was visible among the twisted wreckage of the building, the Associated Press reports, after being taken on a government tour of the site.
“In this whole area there is no military,” an ambulance driver told the AP.
Zlitan is in the Misrata District, and has been attacked by rebel forces from the district capital of Misrata several times over the past few months, though attempts to capture the town have, as elsewhere, failed.
Gadhafi’s minders also showed off several food warehouses they say were damaged in strikes, still on fire during the tour.
The dead included three doctors. NATO is refusing to release information on the strike before Tuesday.
Also Monday, British jets bombed the Central Organization for Electronic Research, an engineering academy that Major General Nick Pope said was cover for Libyan intelligence services and Gadhafi’s “nefarious activities.”
Though several civilian targets have been hit in NATO’s air war, they have usually denied it or claimed that the sites were military in nature. These claims will be difficult to make about a hospital.
NATO Abandons Denial, Admits to Libya Attack That Killed 15
Jason Ditz / AntiWar.com
(June 21, 2011) — On Sunday, NATO copped to killing at least nine civilians in a strike in Central Tripoli, blaming a “weapons system failure,” but when a second incident in the suburb of Sorman came out the very next morning, they angrily denied involvement, saying warplanes weren’t even operating near the area.
But they were. NATO has now abandoned that denial and admits that they did attack the compound in Sorman, claiming it was a military “command and control” center. Media were taken to the site yesterday and shown the bodies of slain civilians, including children.
The Sorman attack killed at least 15 people according to officials, including three children. NATO said it was “aware” of the claim but had no way of verifying if it was true. Unlike Sunday’s killings, however, they offered no apology, and Canadian Gen. Bouchard, the commander of the war, vowed to continue to launch such attacks.
Which isn’t sitting well with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who warned the killings of civilians was putting the alliance’s credibility at risk. NATO is nominally in Libya to “protect civilians” under a UN resolution authorizing a no-fly zone.
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