NATO admits Libyan civilians killed in botched air strike

NATO has said a coalition bomb misfired into a residential neighbourhood of Tripoli and killed civilians, an acknowledgment that is likely to fuel a growing controversy over the West's protracted effort to oust Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
Libyan officials said the blast flattened a two-storey house, killing two children and seven adults.
Sunday's bombing marked the first time NATO has acknowledged that a military mishap had resulted in civilian deaths in Libya, and it came a day after the alliance confirmed that last week it accidentally struck a vehicle carrying allied rebel fighters.

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The two incidents underscored the perils of a military campaign the West is waging almost exclusively from the air, with shifting front lines and scattered allies with whom it has shaky lines of communication.
NATO put out a statement regretting the loss of innocent lives, and said that it had intended to strike a military missile site but that ''a weapons system failure'' appeared to ''have caused a number of civilian casualties.''
High-profile cases in which civilians were killed by US and allied troops in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars became major turning points in those conflicts as anti-Western sentiment soared.
Sunday's incident bolstered Colonel Gaddafi's claim that the coalition's operation was just the West's latest bid to invade and pilfer a Muslim nation. ''We will never forgive, we will never forget,'' Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Ati al-Obeidi said.
The Libya operation's growing number of critics on Capitol Hill and in NATO capitals are certain to pounce on the incident to argue that the costly, three-month mission is foundering.
WASHINGTON POST