Libya’s prosecutor general charged on Wednesday that Nato air strikes in support of rebel forces since the end of March have killed more than 1 100 civilians and wounded about 4,500 others.
Mohamed Zekri Mahjubi told foreign journalists in Tripoli he was seeking to prosecute Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Libyan courts for “war crimes”.
“As Nato secretary general, Rasmussen is responsible for the actions of this organisation which has attacked an unarmed people, killing 1 108 civilians and wounding 4 537 others in bombardment of Tripoli and other cities and villages.”
He drew up a list of charges.
Apart from war crimes, Mahjubi accused Rasmussen of trying to kill Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, “deliberate aggression against innocent civilians” and of “the murder of children”.
Also, the Nato chief stood accused of “trying to overthrow the Libyan regime” and replace it with a rebel movement under its control to “take over the wealth” of oil-rich Libya.
Rebels retake village south of Tripoli
Rebels said on Wednesday they had retaken a village south of the capital they lost to forces loyal to Gaddafi earlier in the day, boosting rebel plans for a march on Tripoli.
The retaking of al-Qawalish, about 100km from Tripoli, came at the end of a day of bitter fighting that killed five rebels and wounded 15, according to rebel sources and hospital officials.
The back-and-forth fighting underlined the fragile nature of the rebels’ advances in the west that has led some of their Western backers to push for a political solution to the conflict.
Rebel spokesperson Abdurahman Alzintani said pro-Gaddafi forces had been pushed back to where they were before they took the village earlier on Wednesday, or perhaps even further.
“It is the same, maybe one or two hills further,” he told Reuters.
A Libyan government soldier taken prisoner by the rebels said that pro-Gaddafi forces were massing nearby, potentially setting the stage for renewed fighting soon, according to a Reuters team in the western town of Zintan.
The counter-attack to retake al-Qawalish was carried out by hundreds of rebels in pick-up trucks, who fanned out into the hills about 10km north of the village, under fire from mortars launched by government troops.
Rebel forces want to use al-Qawalish as a staging post to take the nearby town of Garyan, which controls access to the main highway heading north to Tripoli.
On the other main battle front, near the western city of Misrata, a burst of missile and mortar fire killed five rebels and wounded 17, hospital spokesperson Khaled Abu Talghah said.
“This is just a normal day’s work for Gaddafi,” he said. – AFP, Reuters