LIBYAN FORCES pounded rebel-held Misurata and mobs ransacked foreign embassies and the UN compound in Tripoli yesterday in apparent retaliation for a Nato air strike which the government said killed one of Muammar Gadafy’s sons and three grandchildren.
The United Nations announced it was pulling out of Tripoli after its compound in the Libyan capital was attacked by the mobs, while Britain expelled the Libyan ambassador after its embassy was ransacked and set on fire.
Hours before the attacks, the Libyan leader had given a rambling 80-minute speech on state television, promising revenge for the Nato air strike that Libya says killed his youngest son, Saif al-Arab (29).
That revenge was apparently not long in coming: as dawn broke shells and rockets began to rain down on the besieged town of Misurata, which reported six people killed.
The spokesman for Misurata’s rebel leadership, Mohamed al Zawwan, told The Irish Times: “They are shelling on all three sections . They are bombing the port. You do not have to listen to me, you can hear the sound of the rockets around me.”
The UN reported that mobs broke into its Tripoli compound and vandalised facilities. It said there were no casualties. Britain, along with several Nato states, closed its embassy and withdrew staff in February.
British foreign secretary William Hague said Libya had breached its obligation to protect diplomatic premises. “As a result, I have taken the decision to expel the Libyan ambassador.
“The Vienna Convention requires the Gadafy regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli. By failing to do so, that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations,” he said.
Reports from journalists based in Tripoli said a mob had stormed the British embassy compound and set fire to the building.
Italy, which has recognised the Provisional Transitional Council based in rebel-held Benghazi as the legitimate authority in Libya, said its own embassy, also closed earlier this year, was stormed by a pro-Gadafy mob and vandalised.
In Tripoli, Col Gadafy’s spokesman Mussa Ibrahim accused Nato of “war crimes” in the strike which hit one of the dictator’s homes. “What we have now is the law of the jungle,” he said.
Nato defended its actions last night, saying it had the right to target command installations of Libyan forces because those forces were engaged in attacks on civilians.
The commander of the Nato operation, Lieut Gen Charles Bouchard, said all targets “are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gadafy regime’s systemic attacks on the Libyan population”.
Nato stopped short of saying it was engaged in a policy of assassination aimed at the Libyan leader.
But Russia, one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council that authorised the strikes in March, said it had “serious doubts” about Nato’s policy.