Deliberate NATO Attack Slaughters 19 Libyan Civilians, Including 8 Children & Pregnant Woman

Just one day after a NATO “weapons system failure” resulted in the errant bombing of a Tripoli home, killing nine innocent civilians including three babies, a deliberate attack on the home of a top government official has slaughtered 19 civilians, including eight children and a pregnant woman.

According to al-Jazeera and the World Socialist Web Site, eight NATO rockets slammed into the estate of Khouildi Hamidi, a member of Libya’s Revolutionary Command Council, in Surman, 44 miles (70 km) west of the capital Tripoli. Many members of Hamidi’s family, including his two small grandchildren and his pregnant daughter-in-law, were killed in what NATO is calling an attack on a ”legitimate military target.”

“This was a clear strike by NATO on a high value command and control node used to co-ordinate attacks against civilians,” NATO military spokesman Mike Bracken said.

But Moussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government spokesman, rejected NATO’s assertion. “This is very twisted logic, so you kill children, you kill mothers, you kill fathers, aunts and uncles, and then you try to explain it by twisted political military logic,” he said.

Libyan officials claim NATO attacks have killed more than 700 innocent civilians.

Not only that, but NATO accidentally attacked a column of the rebel forces it is purportedly helping, injuring 16 of them over the weekend.

The astounding number of civilian casualties in recent days has led to a rift among NATO members, with Italy calling for an immediate end to hostilities. Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who warned that NATO’s credibility is in danger, declared that “you can’t run the risk of killing civilians, this is something that is absolutely unacceptable.”

Indeed, the mounting death of innocent civilians seems to belie NATO’s stated reason for waging war against Libya, which was the protection of civilian life.

But France and Britain rejected Italy’s call for peace, declaring that the war will continue. And with it, so will the slaughter of Libyan babies.

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