Scores of unintended civilian casualties in NATO bombing of Libya

The New York Times reports: NATO’s seven-month air campaign in Libya, hailed by the alliance and many Libyans for blunting a lethal crackdown by Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and helping to push him from power, came with an unrecognized toll: scores of civilian casualties the alliance has long refused to acknowledge or investigate.

By NATO’s telling during the war, and in statements since sorties ended on Oct. 31, the alliance-led operation was nearly flawless — a model air war that used high technology, meticulous planning and restraint to protect civilians from Colonel Qaddafi’s troops, which was the alliance’s mandate.

“We have carried out this operation very carefully, without confirmed civilian casualties,” the secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in November.

But an on-the-ground examination by The New York Times of airstrike sites across Libya — including interviews with survivors, doctors and witnesses, and the collection of munitions remnants, medical reports, death certificates and photographs — found credible accounts of dozens of civilians killed by NATO in many distinct attacks. The victims, including at least 29 women or children, often had been asleep in homes when the ordnance hit.

In all, at least 40 civilians, and perhaps more than 70, were killed by NATO at these sites, available evidence suggests. While that total is not high compared with other conflicts in which Western powers have relied heavily on air power, and less than the exaggerated accounts circulated by the Qaddafi government, it is also not a complete accounting. Survivors and doctors working for the anti-Qaddafi interim authorities point to dozens more civilians wounded in these and other strikes, and they referred reporters to other sites where civilian casualties were suspected.

Two weeks after being provided a 27-page memorandum from The Times containing extensive details of nine separate attacks in which evidence indicated that allied planes had killed or wounded unintended victims, NATO modified its stance.

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2 thoughts on “Scores of unintended civilian casualties in NATO bombing of Libya

  1. Susan

    70? hell, closer to 70,000 than 70, would be my guess. of course, this is far from over, and if we end up with “only” 70,000 dead in Libya, it would be amazing….

  2. dickerson3870

    RE: “Scores of unintended civilian casualties in NATO bombing of Libya”

    ALSO SEE: Anatomy of a NATO War Crime ~ by Franklin Lamb, Counterpunch, 12/16/11

    (excerpts)…Sorman Libya. A quiet and peaceful Libyan town, Sorman is located 45 miles west of Tripoli, near the Mediterranean coast, in the Zawiya District of the Tripolitania region in northwestern Libya. Many of the town’s children grew up exploring the 3rd Century Roman ruins at nearby Zabratha…
    …Oddly, NATO records for June 20 as well as subsequent reports of bombing attacks listed for June 20th and June 21st in its daily logs have never included the bombing attack on Sorman or the attack on the Al-Hamedi residence which indisputably killed 15 civilians.
    Just before the bombs hit, eye witnesses, reported seeing red specks in the sky and then flashes of intense light, immediately followed by thunderous ear splitting blasts as eight American bombs and rockets pulverized their neighbor’s homestead.
    In an instant Khaled El-Hamedi’s family was dead. The children were crushed, blown apart or shredded into pieces, along with friends and extended family members who had slept overnight…

    ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/anatomy-of-a-nato-war-crime/

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