A NATO air strike in Tripoli, which Libyan authorities say killed a son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was aimed at Gaddafi’s physical destruction, a member of the Russian parliament said on Sunday.
Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the State Duma international committee, said in an interview with RIA Novosti that the NATO operation in Libya was focusing on the indiscriminate use of force and was swerving away from the conflict resolution within the legal mandate.
“A civil war is raging in Libya and with the interference of a third, external party, the situation is turning into an impasse,” Kosachyov said, adding that last night’s bombing of Gaddafi’s residence was an attempt by the NATO coalition forces to get out of the impasse.
The NATO airstrike on a wealthy residential area in Tripoli on Saturday killed Gaddafi’s youngest son, Saif al-Arab, 29, who was a postgraduate student majoring in economy and not a military person, Libyan state-run JANA news agency earlier reported.
The airstrike on Gaddafi’s house also killed three of his grandchildren as well as several friends and neighbors, the agency said citing a statement from the government.
Kosachyov said that civilians were killed during the NATO airstrike and that such tragedies were inevitable when the stated goals, even if the noblest ones, were beginning to be achieved by unlawful means.
A total of 14 of the 28 NATO countries are taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes airstrikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya on March 17, paving the way for a military operation against Gaddafi which began two days later. The command of the operation was shifted from a U.S.-led international coalition to NATO in late March.
MOSCOW, May 1 (RIA Novosti)