NATO under fire

News of the death of Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi in a bombing raid has sparked renewed criticisms of NATO operations in the Libyan conflict, writes David Tresilian in Paris
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A NATO air strike killed the Libyan leader's youngest son Saif Al-Arab and three grandchildren Sunday in what Gaddafi charged was a direct assassination attempt on him

News that Saif Al-Arab Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and three of the latter's grandchildren were killed in a NATO bombing raid on the Libyan capital Tripoli at the weekend has drawn renewed international criticism of operations carried out in the country to enforce the terms of UN Security Resolution 1973.

The news of Saif Al-Arab's death in the NATO raid came in an announcement by Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim on Sunday, who said that Muammar Gaddafi and his wife Safiya had also been in the building targeted in the raid at the time, though both had escaped injury.

Ibrahim said the intention behind the raid had been to assassinate the Libyan leader and that it had gone beyond the terms of Resolution 1973 authorising the NATO-led intervention in the Libyan conflict, since this only allowed the protection of civilians from attack.

Foreign journalists in Tripoli were taken to view the ruins of the buildings allegedly targeted in the attack, part of a Gaddafi family complex in a residential area of Tripoli. Following the attack, British and Italian embassy buildings in the Libyan capital were destroyed by Gaddafi supporters.

UN Security Council Resolution 1973, passed on 17 March, authorises "all necessary measures to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, including Benghazi, while excluding a foreign occupation force of any form on any part of Libyan territory."

Responding to criticisms of the NATO raid on the grounds that it appeared to have gone beyond the terms of the UN resolution, British Prime Minister David Cameron said that attacks on Libyan "command and control" sites were in line with the resolution because they were intended to prevent "loss of civilian life by targeting Gaddafi's war-making machine".

In a statement on Sunday, Lieutenant- General Charles Bouchard, commander of the NATO operations, said that "all NATO's targets are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Qadhafi regime's systematic attacks on the Libyan population. We do not target individuals."

"I am aware of unconfirmed media reports that some of Qadhafi's family members may have been killed. NATO is fulfilling its UN mandate to stop and prevent attacks against civilians with precision and care -- unlike Qadhafi's forces," Bouchard said.

Since NATO took control of the military operations carried out under Resolution 1973 and the earlier Resolution 1970 on 31 March, a total of 4,728 sorties, including 1,924 strike sorties, had been conducted over Libya by last weekend by the mostly US, British and French forces taking part in the NATO-led coalition.

Following an announcement by US President Barack Obama on 28 March that the US intended to play only a "supporting role" in policing the Libyan conflict, British and French forces have since carried out the lion's share of military operations implemented in Libya under the terms of the UN mandate.

If reports of the deaths of four members of Gaddafi's family in the NATO air raids are confirmed, this will be the second time that members of the Gaddafi family have been killed in air raids on the Libyan leader's compound, a raid carried out by US forces in April 1986 having earlier caused the death of Gaddafi's infant daughter.

The strikes on the Gaddafi compound were condemned by Russia and other countries, which pointed to the illegality of attempts to assassinate foreign leaders. In a statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry called for "an immediate ceasefire and the beginning of a political settlement process" to the Libyan conflict.

In other developments last week, news that Tunisian border forces had again intervened in attempts to prevent pro-Gaddafi forces from entering Tunisian territory in pursuit of Libyan rebels pointed to the ramifications the conflict is continuing to have on neighbouring countries.

More than 200,000 people, primarily third-country guest workers, are believed to have fled Libya to neighbouring countries since the conflict began in February, with Tunisia, Egypt, Niger and Algeria seeing significant flows of refugees.

Pro-Gaddafi forces in the south of the country last week continued incursions into neighbouring Tunisia in pursuit of rebel forces, shelling the Tunisian border town of Dehiba in the process and provoking official protests from the Foreign Ministry in Tunis.

Some 35,000 Libyans are believed to have crossed into Tunisia at the border crossing at Dehiba in search of safety as fighting continued in the Nafusa mountains in the south of the country, many of them heading for refugee camps established in the area by the UN High Commission for Refugees and the Red Crescent.

While the Libyan crisis seems for the time being not to have spilled over directly into Europe, there were signs last week that European leaders are becoming increasingly concerned about the effects instability in North Africa may be having on European countries.

A meeting was held in Rome last week between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to discuss differences between the two countries over the treatment of Tunisians entering the European Union in the wake of the revolution in their country.

Tit-for-tat quarrels have been taking place between French and Italian police on the Franco-Italian border, with French police apparently ignoring the 1985 Schengen agreement that guarantees the free movement of people across the 27-member Union by demanding identity papers from travelers of North African origin and returning many of them across the border.

Some 25,000 refugees had earlier arrived on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa fleeing instability in Tunisia following the collapse of the regime of former president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali in January.

Many of these refugees were then given temporary residence permits by the Italian authorities, in theory allowing them to continue their journey into France where many Tunisians have friends or family. However, reports from the Franco-Italian border suggest that French police have been ignoring the Italian-issued papers, arresting Tunisian refugees or sending them back to Italy.

According to French MP Jean-Claude Guibal, mayor of the border town of Menton near the southern French city of Nice, quoted in the newspaper Nice-Matin last week, since the Gaddafi regime in Libya was no longer halting North Africans and others wanting to come to Europe, "the dikes had fallen" and France "was the sole rampart" against "hordes of refugees."

According to reports in the French press earlier this week, Tunisian refugees who had found their way into France were being arrested by police in Paris, several hundred being found sleeping rough in the city's parks and open spaces.

The French newspaper Le Monde commented in its front-page editorial last Thursday that while the number of refugees entering Europe as a result of the current instability in North Africa "had not yet reached biblical proportions," there was reason to believe that numbers could significantly increase.

As a result, the newspaper said, the Schengen agreement on the free movement of people throughout the EU should be reviewed, and the EU should "adopt a strategy of investment, assistance and long-term loans for its southern neighbours, in order that the Arab Spring does not become a source of increased migration."

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