A Nato air strike has killed Muammar Gaddafi’s youngest son and three of his grandchildren, a Libyan official in Tripoli said, while accusing the alliance of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader. It was the first time someone from Gaddafi’s inner circle has been killed in six weeks of Nato air strikes.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, 29, was “martyred” in the attack on his villa in Tripoli, where his father had been staying the night.

Saif al-Arab, described by Ibrahim as a student who had studied in Germany, is one of Gaddafi’s less prominent sons. He is said to have had only a minor role in the country’s power structure.

“[Muammar Gaddafi] is in good health. He wasn’t harmed,” Ibrahim told a news conference, shortly after foreign journalists were shown the site of the attack.

“His wife is also in good health.” He added: “This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country.

“What we have now is the law of the jungle. We think now it is clear to everyone that what is happening in Libya has nothing to do with the protection of civilians.”

David Cameron told the BBC that Nato targeting policy in Libya was clear and “in line” with the UN resolution.

“It is about targeting command and control rather than particular individuals,” he said.

“The targeting policy has been very closely followed, these things are very carefully put together.

“Let’s remember, while Gaddafi said that he wanted a ceasefire he was mining the harbour in Misrata in order to blow up vessels that were bringing humanitarian aid to help the people that he is murdering and killing with his snipers and rockets and artillery. We have got to remember that.”

Nato forces are permitted, under UN resolution 1973, passed in March, to use “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from pro-Gaddafi forces, but Nato leaders have repeatedly insisted that directly targeting Gaddafi is not a goal.

A Nato statement said: “Nato continued its precision strikes against regime military installations in Tripoli overnight, including striking a known command and control building in the Bab al-Azizia neighbourhood shortly after 6pm GMT Saturday evening.”

Ibrahim said: “This is not permitted by international law. Nato does not care to test our promises, the west does not care to test our statements. Their only care is to rob us of our freedom.”

Reports said the complex of one-storey buildings appeared to have been hit by at least three missiles.

The roof had completely collapsed in some areas, exposing mangled steel rods and hanging chunks of concrete.

A table football machine stood outside in the garden of the house, which was in a wealthy residential area of Tripoli. The blasts were heard across the city late on Saturday night.

Gaddafi had seven sons and one daughter. He also had an adopted daughter who was killed in a 1986 American air strike on his Bab al-Azizia residential compound.

That strike came in retaliation for a deadly bomb attack on a German disco blamed on Libya.

Rifle fire and car horns rang out in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in eastern Libya, as news of the attack spread.

Just hours earlier, Gaddafi had delivered a rambling, defiant speech on state television in which he declared that he was “more sacred [to Libyans] than the emperor of Japan is to his people”, and called for talks with Nato.

“The door to peace is open,” he said. “You are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you. Come, France, Italy, UK, America, come, we will negotiate with you. Why are you attacking us?”

In an echo of comments by another son, Saif al-Islam, who said on Friday that the regime would fight on for 40 years if necessary, Gaddafi said his own future would not be up for discussion in any talks.

“No one can force me to leave my country, and no one can tell me not to fight for my country,” he said.

A Nato official told Associated Press that Gaddafi’s call for an end to hostilities lacked credibility.

“The regime has announced ceasefires several times before and continued attacking cities and civilians. All this has to stop, and it has to stop now,” he said.

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Guardian

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