NATO WAS yesterday investigating claims that one of its airstrikes killed Libyan rebel fighters near the eastern oil town of Brega.
For the second time in less than a week, rebel leaders blamed the alliance for bombing their forces by mistake. In this incident, at least five rebel fighters were allegedly killed in a Nato strike on a column of tanks as they advanced westwards towards the front line of their battle with Muammar Gadafy’s army.
“The situation is unclear and fluid, with mechanised weapons travelling in all directions,” the Atlantic alliance said in a statement, adding it was looking into the incident.
“What remains clear is that Nato will continue to uphold the UN mandate and strike forces that can potentially cause harm to the civilian population of Libya.”
News agencies quoted rebels in a hospital in Ajdabiyah, where the wounded were treated, saying the opposition fighters were hit by two Nato missiles as they stood by their tanks. The rebels have in recent days moved tanks and heavy artillery towards the front line, and some analysts suggested this could have made it more difficult to distinguish them from Col Gadafy’s forces.
Nato, stung by rebel complaints that air strikes had eased off since it took command of the military operation last week, has said the use of human shields and conventional transport by Col Gadafy’s forces has made it more difficult to target them.
The sense that neither side is strong enough to overrun the other was strengthened yesterday when Gen Carter Ham, the commander of US Africa Command, told a senate hearing in Washington he believed a stalemate was emerging on the ground.
That has given impetus to diplomatic activity aimed at resolving the crisis.
In Paris, French foreign minister Alain Juppé said yesterday the West must work harder for a political solution, but the outside world should also do more to support the rebels. Mr Juppé this week contradicted the defence minister by suggesting there was no legal impediment to arming the rebels, though Nato has expressed reservations about such a move.
“Gadafy has clearly lost all legitimacy, his camp is disintegrating and we are seeing new defections every day. On the other hand, his force and rebel forces continue to fight each other without any side winning,” Mr Juppé said.
“In this very indecisive context, it is more necessary than ever to look for a political solution and that is what we are working on today,” he told the Senate.
Mr Juppé said France was pushing for representatives of the opposition Provisional National Transition Council to address a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg next Monday.
“These reflections should also allow us to reinforce the national transition council which is fighting for democracy and freedom,” he said. “We should reinforce it because nobody in the zone controlled by revolutionaries contests its legitimacy.”
Meanwhile, a Libyan former energy minister, Omar Fathi bin Shatwan, escaped to Malta from the besieged Libyan town of Misrata, the Maltese foreign ministry said. Mr Shatwan, who left the government in 2007, arrived in Malta on a small trawler.