— 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 Muammar Gaddafi’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.
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 Gaddafi’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 Gaddafi’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. See TIME’s special report “The Middle East in Revolt.”
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