NATO Denies Targeting Qaddafi

The Guardian reports:

Nato has denied targeting the family of Muammar Gaddafi following the strikes on a Tripoli residential compound that reportedly killed the Libyan leader's son and three of his grandchildren.

"All Nato's targets are military in nature and have been clearly linked to the Gaddafi regime's systematic attacks on the Libyan population and populated areas. We do not target individuals," said Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, the Canadian officer commanding the military operations in Libya from Naples.

But the deaths of Gaddafi's three grandchildren, if confirmed, will reinforce the doubts of alliance members uncomfortable with Nato's six-week bombing campaign and generate ferocious criticism from countries such as Russia that Nato is pushing well beyond its UN security council mandate.

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Russian parliament's foreign affairs committee, called the incident "a clear confirmation of the indiscriminate use of force by the anti-Libyan coalition", and said that "more and more facts indicate that the purpose of the anti-Libyan coalition is to physically destroy Gaddafi".

The Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, went further in his criticism: "There is no doubt the order was given to kill Gaddafi. It doesn't matter who else is killed… this is a murder," he said in Caracas.