Nato admits 'weapon system failure' after missile hits residential area

Damage: People gather around buildings destroyed by Nato airstrike
12 April 2012

Nato has admitted that alliance warplanes may have hit a residential district in the Libyan capital Tripoli causing a number of civilian casualties.

A statement posted on the Nato website said that a "weapons system failure" may have been responsible for a missile going astray.

Earlier Libyan officials claimed nine people were killed in the attack in the early hours of yesterday morning.

After having spent much of the day saying that it was investigating what happened, Nato conceded that it may have been responsible.

The commander of alliance operations in Libya, Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, said: "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.

"Although we are still determining the specifics of this event, indications are that a weapons system failure may have caused this incident."

Nato did not disclose which country's aircraft were involved, although the Ministry of Defence said that RAF warplanes were not operating in the area at the time.

The admission that its aircraft may have been responsible is a severe setback for the alliance, which has been at pains to avoid civilian casualties in the air campaign against Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

The Libyan officials were swift to exploit the propaganda potential, with foreign minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi calling for a "global jihad" on the West in response.

Journalists based in Tripoli were rushed to see the bomb-damaged building, which appeared to have been partially under construction.

Reporters were later escorted back to the site during daylight, where it was reported that children's toys, teacups and dust-covered mattresses could be seen amid the rubble.

Mr Al-Obeidi claimed that nine civilians, including two children, had been killed and 18 people wounded in the explosion.

He denounced the bombing as a "deliberate attack on a civilian neighbourhood".

"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 organisations as Nato to decide the future of other independent and sovereign nations," he said.

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