Tripoli – NATO accused Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi on Saturday of using mosques and children's parks as shields, saying the longtime ruler who lashed out against alliance airstrikes is the one "brutally attacking the Libyan people."
In a telephone call piped through loudspeakers to a few thousand people demonstrating in Tripoli's Green Square on Friday, Qadhafi railed against NATO following a day of intensified bombing runs in the capital. NATO's mandate is to protect civilians amid a four-month uprising that has devolved into a civil war.
"NATO will be defeated," Qadhafi yelled in a hoarse, agitated voice to the crowd. "They will pull out in defeat."
In Brussels on Saturday, NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu dismissed Qadhafi's speech as "outrageous."
"We are saving countless lives every day across the country," she said. "We are conducting operations with utmost care and precision to avoid civilian casualties. Civilian casualties figures mentioned by the Libyan regime are pure propaganda."
She also accused Qadhafi and his regime of "systematically and brutally attacking the Libyan people," saying government forces "have been shelling cities, mining ports and using mosques and children's parks as shields."
NATO has been ramping up the pressure on Qadhafi's more than four-decade-old regime. Though most airstrikes happen under cover of darkness, daytime raids have grown more frequent.
Lungescu's comments also counter allegations from Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, who accused NATO on Friday of a "new level of aggression" and said the military alliance has intentionally targeted civilian buildings in recent days, including a hotel and a university.
"It has become clear to us that NATO has moved on to deliberately hitting civilian buildings. …This is a crime against humanity," he told reporters in the capital.
Libya's Health Ministry released new casualty figures that put the number of civilians killed in NATO airstrikes through 7 June at 856. There was no way to independently verify the figure and previous government-announced tolls from individual strikes have proven to be exaggerated.
NATO attacked the Libyan capital at midday Friday, pounding a target in the south of the city and sending a thick cloud of black smoke rising high into the air.
A series of explosions rumbled across other parts of the city as fighter jets could by heard flying overhead. Fire engines raced through the streets, sirens blaring. It wasn't clear what was hit or whether there were casualties.
A coalition including France, Britain and the United States launched the first strikes against Qadhafi's forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on 19 March. NATO, which is joined by a number of Arab allies, assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on 31 March.
