Libya : A no lie zone

[Jan Klimkowski]

Nato has refused to apologise for an attack on Libyan rebel forces in the east of the country in which at least five people were killed, saying it had not been told the rebels had tanks.

The attack on Wednesday between the towns of Brega and Ajdabiya killed at least five rebel fighters. Doctors reported up to 13 deaths. Armoured vehicles were destroyed.

A similar attack by Nato planes five days earlier killed a reported 10 rebel fighters, and this latest bombing has enraged those fighting Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Rear Admiral Russ Harding, the British officer who is deputy commander of Nato's Libya operation, said the alliance's jets had carried out 318 sorties and struck 23 targets across Libya in the past 48 hours.

"It would appear that two of our strikes yesterday may have resulted in [rebel] deaths," he told reporters in Naples, where the operation is based.

"I am not apologising. The situation on the ground was and remains extremely fluid and until yesterday we did not have information that [rebel] forces are using tanks."

The tanks had been seized from Gaddafi's forces and were being used for the first time by the rebels, whose communications with Nato are patchy.

Harding said Nato's mission was to protect civilians from attack and "when you see their tanks coming up, those are the vehicles that can cause the greatest harm to civilians".

Later, Nato's secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said he "strongly regrets" the loss of life.

"We are conducting operations in Libya in accordance with the UN security council resolution with the aim to protect civilians. This is also the reason why our aircrafts target military equipment that could be used to attack civilians, but I can assure you that we do our utmost to avoid civilian casualties."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr...air-strike

We're so far through the Looking Glass that the military grunts have no clue what they're talking about.

In truth, the NATO attack on Libyan tanks was probably a legitimate act to protect civilians under the (entirely bogus) terms of the UN resolution.

However, presumably, the NATO pilots believed they were attacking Gaddafi tanks, rather than rebel tanks.

Of course, one probable deeper political truth is that the objective of the puppet masters is to create chaos and anarchy in Libya, to enable the balkanization and division of the Libyan state, and facilitate multinational control of its oil through client fiefdoms.

In which case, it is entirely possible that this was a deliberate NATO strike on rebel forces - even if the pilots may have been told that the tanks were Gaddafi's, rather than rebel.