Qaddafi's son Saif Al-Arab killed in NATO airstrike

Sunday May 01, 2011 07:30:42 AM, Agencies

Tripoli: A NATO missile strike killed Muammar Qaddafi's youngest son and three grandchildren on Saturday but the Libyan leader survived, a government spokesman said.

Qaddafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Saif Al-Arab Qaddafi, when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.

“The leader himself is in good health,” Ibrahim said.

“He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.” Saif Al-Arab Qaddafi was the sixth son of Qaddafi and brother of the better known Seif Al-Islam Qaddafi. The younger Qaddafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.

“The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Saif al-Arab Qaddafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader's grandchildren,” Ibrahim said. He said Saif Al-Arab had studied at a German university but had not yet completed his studies.

Saif Al-Arab “was playing and talking with his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked for no crimes committed,” Ibrahim said.

"This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country. This is not permitted by international law. It is not permitted by any moral code or principle," Ibrahim said.

"We will fight and fight if we have to," Ibrahim said. "The leader offered peace to NATO yesterday and NATO rejected it."

Fighting in Libya's civil war, which grew from protests for greater political freedom that have spread across the Arab world, has reached stalemate in recent weeks with neither side capable of achieving a decisive blow.

Libyan forces had reached the gates of Benghazi last month when Qaddafi appeared on television declaring he would crush the rebellion, showing "no pity, no mercy.” Days later the United Nations passed its resolution allowing the air strikes and saving the rebels from defeat.

Journalists taken to the walled complex of one-story buildings in a residential Tripoli neighborhood saw heavy bomb damage. The blast had torn down the ceiling of one building and left a huge pile of rubble and twisted metal on the ground.
 

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