Libya has accused NATO of purposefully bombing Islamic imams on early Friday morning. The Libyan government has released video footage of what the government claims to be an attack on a guest house in the city of Al-Brega in eastern Libya. Dozens of Islamic imams or sheikhs were staying as part of a peace march to the east.
The horrifying video showed 11 dead imams and 45 wounded Muslim holy men, five of which are in a coma according to Libyan government officials. Islamic elders and Christian Coptic priests gathered to protest the attack in the courtyard of a Tripoli mosque on Friday.
Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the carnage was caused by NATO airstrikes. “We will never accept from NATO that this was an accident. This barbaric, inhumane attack took place in the early hours,” Ibrahim said. “The imams had travelled to call for brothers in the east of the country to join them in peace.”They were staying in a small guest house in the city of Brega to rest before moving on to Ajdabiya, and then hopefully Benghazi.”
“Is this legal under any Security Council resolution, to kill people while they sleep just awhile before they were praying for peace?” Ibrahim asked.
NATO has not responded about the bombing. They held a press conference on Friday in Brussels but did not address the claims from the Libyan government. Muammar Gaddafi released an audio recording that was broadcast on state television. “I am telling the coward crusaders that I am at a place you cannot reach and kill me,” he said in the recording broadcast on al-Jamahiriya television.
NATO bombed Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli on Thursday. Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini stated that Gaddafi was injured in the recent strike and is no longer in the capital. The Libyan government has rejected that claim.
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