NATO-led air strikes hit Moamer Gaddafi’s compound on Thursday, killing six people, the Libyan regime said as rebels celebrated the capture of Misrata airport and a British invitation to open their first foreign office. The pre-dawn strikes in the capital Tripoli came just hours after Libyan state television showed what it said was footage of Gaddafi meeting tribal leaders, the first new video of him aired since an April 30 air strike that his government termed an attempt on his life. “There were three dead here and three dead in another place” in addition to 10 wounded, said the official, gesturing to scattered sandbags next to a crater in a street of the Bab al-Azaziyah compound.
Both he and another regime minder escorting foreign media on a tour of the site said all the casualties were civilians, but AFP was unable to independently confirm their accounts. An AFP correspondent heard four explosions in quick succession in the early hours as NATO-led jets flew overhead. Two plumes of white smoke could be seen rising above the city following the blasts, as emergency vehicle sirens wailed and sporadic gunfire rang out. Late on Wednesday state television had shown footage of what it said was a meeting between Gaddafi and tribal dignitaries from the rebel-held east. A Libyan official told AFP the video was shot around 7:30 pm (1730 GMT).
It was the first fresh footage of Gaddafi since an air strike killed his son Seif al-Arab and three of his grandchildren, in what the govt described as “a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country.” NATO spokesmen have repeatedly insisted that they have made no attempt to strike individual leaders of the Libyan government, but have only targeted its capacity to harm civilians.
A statement from the Western alliance said NATO-led aircraft carried out 46 strike sorties on Wednesday, including raids which took out four ammunition caches, four command and control facilities and two surface-to-air missile launchers in and around Tripoli, and one launcher near Misrata.
In London, the rebels’ leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil held talks with British PM David Cameron buoyed by their capture of Misrata airport on Wednesday which gave them full control of Libya’s third city, their only significant stronghold in the west. Cameron invited Abdul Jalil’s National Transitional Council — the rebels’ provisional administration — to open an office in London, their first foreign mission. He said Britain would from now regard the council as “the legitimate political interlocutor” in Libya, and its “primary partner”.
