Up to 13 Afghan civilians killed in NATO airstrike (AFP)

KHOST, Afghanistan (AFP) – Up to 13 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in a NATO airstrike on Thursday in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, provincial police chief Mohamad Zazai said.

"Unfortunately eight women, four children, and one man were killed in a NATO airstrike on a residential house in Dowamanda district early this morning," Zazai said.

He said four militants from the Taliban-linked Haqqani network were also killed in the strike.

"The body of a Haqqani commander and three fighters have also been recovered from the vicinity of the house. A delegation has been sent to investigate the incident," he said.

A spokesman for the provincial governor confirmed that civilians had been killed in the incident but gave no further details.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said those killed were family members of the Haqqani network, which is a target of the alliance force.

A spokesman for the coalition said Afghan-led forces had gone in search of the insurgents when they came under attack by rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire.

"Responding to the insurgent attack, the security forces returned fire and called in an air weapons team. The subsequent air strike killed several insurgents and unintentionally a number of associated family members," the spokesman said.

The deaths triggered protests that blocked the main highway to Kabul nearby.

They come a day after provincial authorities in southern Ghazni claimed two civilians were killed in another military incident. NATO said it was looking into those claims.

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Libyan state media says NATO airstrike kills 15 (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libyan authorities accused NATO of killing 15 people in an airstrike Saturday that they said hit a restaurant and bakery in the east, though the alliance denied the report.

It was the latest outcry from Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's government blaming NATO for killing civilians amid a four-month uprising that has sparked a civil war. NATO insists it does all it can to avoid such casualties.

Meanwhile, rebel representatives said their fighters were coordinating around the country for the "zero hour" when their forces would reach the capital of Tripoli.

The rebels said they have been working to cut fuel supplies from the Tunisian border in an attempt to paralyze Gadhafi's forces. Rebels also are making homemade bombs and trying to ferry other weapons to their comrades in Tripoli, a spokesman for an underground guerrilla group there said.

Libya's state news agency quoted a military official in Gadhafi's forces as saying that NATO warplanes hit a number of civilian sites Saturday in the oil town of Brega, including a restaurant and a bakery.

The official said 15 civilians were killed and 20 wounded in the strike. The JANA news agency also claimed five civilians were killed Friday in Brega as well.

NATO said it did not carry out any strikes in the area on Saturday.

A NATO official said alliance warplanes did hit several targets in the vicinity of Brega on Friday but that there was no evidence civilians had been killed or wounded.

"We have no indications of any civilian casualties in connection with these strikes," said the official, who spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media on the record. "What we know is that the buildings we hit were occupied and used by pro-Gadhafi forces to direct attacks against civilians around Ajdabiya."

Ajdabiya is a city between Brega and the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to the northeast.

NATO said it hit multiple military command sites Friday near Brega, which has been a frequent flashpoint between rebels and Gadhafi's forces.

The alliance said government forces had moved into buildings in an abandoned area of Brega and started using them as military compounds to launch strikes on civilians, putting rebel-held cities such as Ajdabiya and Benghazi at risk.

Reports of civilian casualties in NATO strikes have provoked intense anger among many Libyans in the west of the country under Gadhafi's control.

Images of dead civilians, including young children, described by the government as "martyrs," can be seen frequently at pro-government rallies and on state-controlled television.

NATO is investigating whether one of its airstrikes may have slammed into a civilian neighborhood in Tripoli on June 19, killing several civilians.

A day later, alliance warplanes struck a family compound belonging to a close Gadhafi aide, killing what the Libyan government says was 19 people, including at least three children. NATO called the site was a "command and control" center, and said it regrets any civilian deaths that resulted from the strike.

Rebel spokesman Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga in Benghazi said Gadhafi was to blame for civilian casualties in the fighting because "he keeps his weapons in highly populated civilian areas."

At least two explosions could be heard in the capital of Tripoli on Saturday, though it was not immediately clear what the NATO airstrikes may have hit.

The Libyan rebels began their uprising in February against Gadhafi, who has been in power since 1969. The conflict has turned into a civil war, and Gadhafi's forces are accused of orchestrating deadly attacks on civilians.

The rebels have taken over much of the eastern half of Libya. They also control pockets in the west, including the vital port city of Misrata, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) from the capital.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States began striking Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31 and is joined by a number of Arab allies.

In Benghazi, Ghoga, the spokesman for the rebels' National Transitional Council, said 38 of Gadhafi's military officers — six of them high-ranking — defected to the rebel side and fled to Tunisia Friday.

"This will lead to the further isolation of the Gadhafi regime," he said.

Ghoga said the rebels have been informed that Gadhafi is in contact with leaders in South Africa and France in an attempt to find a possible home in exile. Such claims have been filtering out for weeks, but there is no evidence that the Libyan leader is seeking a way out.

On Saturday, a spokesman for the rebels' western mountain military council confirmed that rebels are coordinating with individual cells and with an underground rebel guerrilla group known as the Tripoli Council. The main goals are to cut the fuel from Gadhafi forces, Gomaa Ibrahim said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Tripoli Council said that their fighters have been carrying out selective attacks on Gadhafi forces in the capital.

The spokesman, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said that the rebels are coordinating for "the zero hour, when rebels from liberated cities enter Tripoli."

"It will be a tremendous mission. The city is now besieged by 13 different security brigades, well armed and well equipped. Gadhafi has always said that his loyalists will sabotage the city if he falls. So this will be our mission: to mob it and clean it of mercenaries."

In Benghazi, Ghoga said there are constant contacts between rebels in different parts of the country, but he did not elaborate.

The rebels got a boost Saturday from several players from Libya's national soccer team who announced their support for the fight to end Gadhafi's rule.

Seventeen players from the team defected while they were in the West African nation of Mali for a match and later traveled to Tunisia, Ghoga said.

The players crossed into rebel-held territory in Libya's western mountains, and visited with residents in the town of Zintan on Saturday, said Gomaa Ibrahim, a spokesman for rebel fighters in that area.

Four of the players are from Tripoli's most popular team, al-Ahly, where one of Gadhafi's sons, al-Saadi, once played, said Ghoga. Al-Saadi now heads Libya's Football Federation.

In a video posted Saturday on a rebel Facebook page under the title "the national team announces its defection," one man said: "God willing, Tripoli will be liberated by this mountain. This is a message to the agents to abandon their weapons because Libya will be free, sooner or later."

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Associated Press writers Maggie Michael in Cairo, Rami al-Shaheibi in Benghazi, Libya, and Slobodan Lekic in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Libya says 9 civilians killed in NATO airstrike (AP)

By ADAM SCHRECK and HADEEL AL-SHALCHI, Associated Press Adam Schreck And Hadeel Al-shalchi, Associated Press – Sun Jun 19, 5:31 pm ET

TRIPOLI, Libya – Libya's government said NATO warplanes struck a residential neighborhood in the capital Sunday and killed nine civilians, including two children. Hours later, NATO confirmed one of its airstrikes went astray.

The incident gave supporters of Moammar Gadhafi's regime a new rallying point against the international intervention in Libya's civil war. The foreign minister called for a "global jihad" on the West in response.

Early Sunday morning, journalists based in the Libyan capital were rushed by government officials to the damaged building, which appeared to have been partly under construction. Reporters were later escorted back to the site, where children's toys, teacups and dust-covered mattresses could be seen amid the rubble.

In a statement issued late Sunday at Brussels headquarters, the trans-Atlantic alliance said airstrikes were launched against a military missile site in Tripoli, but "it appears that one weapon did not strike the intended target and that there may have been a weapons system failure which may have caused a number of civilian casualties."

"NATO regrets the loss of innocent civilian lives and takes great care in conducting strikes against a regime determined to use violence against its own citizens," said Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard, commander of the anti-Libya operation.

Foreign Minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi told reporters nine civilians, including two children, were killed in the explosion and said 18 people were wounded. He said the strike was a "deliberate attack on a civilian neighborhood," and follows other alleged targeting of nonmilitary targets such as a hotel, an oxygen factory and civilian vehicles.

It has not always been possible to independently verify the government's reports of strikes on nonmilitary targets since NATO began its air operations in March.

"The deliberate bombing ... is a direct call for all free peoples of the world and for all Muslims to initiate a global jihad against the oppressive, criminal West and never to allow such criminal organizations as NATO to decide the future of other independent and sovereign nations," al-Obeidi said. He did not take questions.

Journalists were shown the bodies of at least four people said to have been killed in the strike, including the two young children. Foreign reporters in Tripoli are not allowed to travel and report freely and are almost always shadowed by government minders.

Salem Ali Garadi, 51, who said his brother and sister were among the victims, said five people were killed. There was no explanation for the discrepancy in death counts.

Before Sunday's alleged strike, Libya's Health Ministry said 856 civilians had been killed in NATO air attacks since they began in March. The figure could not be independently confirmed. Previous government tolls from individual strikes have proved exaggerated.

Alliance warplanes struck Tripoli again Sunday afternoon. Explosions could be heard in the city, and smoke could be seen rising over the southern part of the capital.

A coalition including France, Britain and the U.S. launched the first strikes against Gadhafi's forces under a U.N. resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO, joined by some Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31.

While NATO warplanes have stepped up their campaign against Gadhafi's regime over the past week, fighting has intensified between rebels and government troops outside the port city of Misrata, the main rebel stronghold in western Libya.

For weeks, the rebels had been bottled up in the city, 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of Tripoli. The eastern third of the country is controlled by rebels from their de facto capital, Benghazi.

On Sunday, Gadhafi's forces unleashed a heavy barrage of Grad rockets and mortars on the rebel front lines in Dafniya, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of Misrata. A medical official in Misrata hospital said that 10 rebels were killed and 54 wounded in clashes Sunday in Dafniya.

As the barrage continued into the afternoon, a stream of pickup trucks rushed casualties to a field hospital in Dafniya, where medics and volunteers quickly unloaded the dead from the back of the pickups and placed the wounded on stretchers. One truck pulled up with three bodies covered in blood.

"They are shelling us really badly today with everything — mortars, Grads, heat-seeking weapons, anything you can imagine," said Mustafa, 30, who was helping drive the wounded from the front.

Gadhafi's forces also ambushed a group of rebels near Dafniya early Sunday with AK-47s and heavy machine guns, according to rebel fighter Mohammed Khalil. He said the fighting was intense, with the two sides as close as 50 yards (meters) from each other. Five rebels were killed in the ambush, he said.

The two sides have also been fighting in a mountain range southwest of the capital that runs to the border with Tunisia and controls a critical supply route for the rebels.

Three days of fighting there in the border town of Nalut has killed 15 people and injured many others, said Brigadier Gomaa Ibrahim, a spokesman of for the rebel military council in the Nafusa Mountains.

"The Gadhafi forces outnumber the rebels and they are better armed and equipped," he said. Gadhafi forces are also taking shelter inside the residential suburbs of Nalut, making it hard for rebels to chase and hunt them down, he said.

Despite daily clashes in places, the rebels say they control about half of the mountain range.

In new defections from Gadhafi's military, 35 army officers led by Brig. Gen. Fouad al-Adrisi announced in a video message that they had joined the rebel ranks. The video was posted on a Facebook page for the uprising.

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Al-Shalchi reported from Dafniya. Associated Press writers Don Melvin in Brussels and Maggie Michael in Cairo contributed to this report.

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Libya says NATO airstrike hits residential area (AP)

TRIPOLI, Libya – The Libyan government accused NATO of bombing a residential neighborhood in the capital and killing civilians early Sunday, adding to its charges that the alliance is striking nonmilitary targets. At least four people, including two children, were reported killed.

It was not possible to independently verify the government's account of what happened and NATO said it is investigating. The alliance has repeatedly insisted it tries hard to avoid killing civilians.

Whether they are confirmed accurate or not, the allegations are likely give Moammar Gadhafi's regime a fresh rallying point against the international intervention into Libya's civil war.

Journalists based in the Libyan capital were rushed by government officials in the early hours of the morning to the destroyed building, which appeared to have been partially under construction.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim wasn't immediately able to provide the number of casualties, but said there were no military facilities anywhere near the damaged building.

Journalists at the scene who were later taken to a hospital were shown at least four people said to be killed in the strike, including the two young children. Foreign journalists in Tripoli are not allowed to travel and report freely and are almost always shadowed by government minders.

"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."

A NATO mission spokesman in Naples, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of NATO regulations, said Sunday that the alliance is aware of the reports and is investigating. But he said at the moment NATO does not know where in Tripoli the alleged airstrike occurred.

The Gadhafi regime has made false claims in the past about NATO having caused civilian deaths, the spokesman added.

Meanwhile, there was heavy shelling Saturday night and Sunday morning in the port city of Misrata, 125 miles (200 kilometers) east of the capital. Muthana Issa, an official at Hikma hospital in Misrata, said there had been four killed and 16 wounded.

For weeks rebels had been bottled up in Misrata, one of a handful of toeholds they hold in western Libya. The eastern third of the country is under rebel control from their de facto capital, Benghazi. As NATO warplanes began stepping up attacks on Libyan government forces, bases and ammunition depots in recent days, the rebels in Misrata used the distraction to start their push out of the city toward Tripoli.

Rebel fighter Mohammed Khalil said a group of rebels was ambushed early Sunday morning by Gadhafi forces near Dafniya, west of Misrata.

He said the rebels fought all night, pushing forward toward the next major town of Zlitan, then retreated back toward Dafniya. Government troops encircled them overnight, then ambushed them in an open field with AK-47s and heavy machine guns at daybreak.

He said the fighting was intense, with the two sides as close as 50 meters from each other. Five rebels were killed in the ambush, he said.

On Friday, Libyan Prime Minister al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi accused NATO of a "new level of aggression," 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.

Libya's Health Ministry says 856 civilians have been killed in NATO airstrikes since they began in March. The figure could not be independently confirmed. Previous government tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.

Late on Saturday, 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 Gadhafi's military and the fighters trying to end his more than four decades in power.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States launched the first strikes against Gadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO, which is joined by a number of Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31.

___

Associated Press writers Hadeel Al-Shalchi in Dafniya, Libya; Sarah El Deeb in Cairo and Don Melvin in Brussels contributed to this report.

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Libyan mourners demand airstrike revenge

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — More than 2,000 Libyans shouting for revenge on Monday buried Moammar Gadhafi's second youngest son, who officials say was killed in a NATO airstrike along with three of the Libyan leader's young grandchildren.

In this photo made on a government-organized tour, supporters carry a poster of a Libyan army colonel who was killed in a NATO attack in April, during funeral ceremony for members of the Gadhafi family in Tripoli on Monday.

By Darko Bandic, AP

In this photo made on a government-organized tour, supporters carry a poster of a Libyan army colonel who was killed in a NATO attack in April, during funeral ceremony for members of the Gadhafi family in Tripoli on Monday.

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi's body, wrapped in a white burial shroud, was lowered into a grave to the thundering sound of anti-aircraft guns being fired from near the cemetery in a Tripoli neighborhood.

Two of his older brothers, Seif al-Islam and Mohammed, paid their respects, but his father was absent. Members of the Gadhafi family have only made infrequent public appearances since the start of the uprising against the Libyan leader in mid-February.

South Africa on Monday joined Russia in criticizing the NATO strike on the Gadhafi family compound. NATO officials have denied they were hunting Gadhafi to break the stalemate between better trained government forces and lightly armed rebels, who control much of eastern Libya.

In Monday's tumultuous funeral, the Gadhafi brothers were thronged by a huge crowd pushing to get closer to the coffin, draped in a green Libyan flag. Seif al-Islam, once pegged as his father's possible successor and a proponent of reform, was dressed in traditional Libyan garb, with a black cap and a black vest over a long white shirt.

The procession began at a large intersection in Tripoli's al-Hani neighborhood, which had been blocked off for the occasion. Thousands crowded around the hearse, chanting "Revenge, revenge for you, Libya" and flashing victory signs.

From there, the mourners carried the casket to the nearby cemetery, where weeds and thistles grew among stone slabs that marked graves.

Seif al-Islam stood at the freshly dug grave as the body of his 29-year-old brother was removed from the simple coffin and lowered into the ground in a burial shroud.

Seif al-Arab was killed late Saturday, along with three of Gadhafi's grandchildren, ages six months to two years, when NATO bombed the family's compound in Tripoli. A French orthopedic surgeon, who runs a private clinic in Tripoli, told reporters he saw three of the four bodies and that one was most likely Seif al-Arab, based on photographs he had seen.

Gadhafi and his wife were present during the attack but were unharmed, said Libyan officials, who accused NATO of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader.

Some foreign countries also criticized the strike, saying it exceeded the U.N. mandate of protecting civilians in Libya. The U.N. approved the implementation of a no-fly zone over Libya in March after Gadhafi attacked protesters who demanded his ouster.

South Africa, which led an African mediation effort in Libya, said Monday that "attacks on leaders and officials can only result in the escalation of tensions and conflicts on all sides and make future reconciliation difficult."

Russia accused NATO of a "disproportionate use of force" on Sunday and called for an immediate cease-fire.

Gadhafi has also called for a cease-fire, but rebels don't believe it is genuine, especially since he has continued to pound the besieged town of Misrata, the only major rebel bastion in western Libya.

Gadhafi's forces used tanks to shell Misrata on Monday, as rumors fueled fears that the Libyan leader was preparing to use chemical weapons.

Hundreds have been killed in Misrata over the past two months as Gadhafi has attempted to seize the town. Rebels succeeded in pushing Gadhafi forces out of several areas of town about a week ago, but they have responded with relentless shelling from the outskirts.

The most recent barrage started early Monday morning and only paused with the threat of NATO airstrikes, said Libyan activist Rida al-Montasser.

"Only when we heard the NATO planes flying over, the shelling paused," said al-Montasser.

Even as the shelling paused, fear spread through Misrata that Gadhafi forces were preparing to use chemical weapons in their fight to defeat the rebels.

"We heard like everybody else that the soldiers are distributing gas masks" in the nearby city of Zlitan, said al-Montasser.

The rumors of Gadhafi forces distributing gas masks could not be independently confirmed.

A U.N. watchdog indicated in February, soon after the Libyan revolution started, that it was unlikely that Gadhafi would use chemical weapons because he had no way to deliver such a payload. Gadhafi destroyed the aerial bombs needed as part of a 2003 reconciliation deal with the West, said the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

U.S. and British intelligence agencies reportedly have been concerned that Gadhafi may not have declared all his munitions and may have held some back, but no evidence has surfaced to support those fears.

Fearful Misrata residents asked officials in Benghazi, the de facto capital in eastern Libya, to send a shipment of gas masks, said al-Montasser, the activist.

On Sunday, the Libyan government unleashed two volleys of rockets on Misrata's port, and heavy shelling occurred elsewhere in the city. The attacks killed 12 people, raising the two-day death toll to 23.

Also Sunday, vandals burned the British and Italian embassies and a U.N. office in Tripoli. The unrest in the capital prompted the U.N. to withdraw its international staff.

Turkey temporarily closed its embassy in Tripoli on Monday due to deteriorating security, and its staff traveled to Tunisia, said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

The Turkish consulate in rebel-controlled Benghazi was still open, the foreign ministry said.

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