Libyan government said NATO has killed 19 civilians in an air strike, a day after the western alliance admitted killing civilians in other raids.

Libyan government said NATO has killed 19 civilians in an air strike, a day after the western alliance admitted killing civilians in other raids.

Libyan officials said NATO raided the home of Khouildi Hamidi, a member of Libya's 12-strong Revolutionary Command Council, in Surman, 70km west of Tripoli.
The state-run Jana news agency later reported on its website that eight children were among 19 people killed in the attack which took place on Monday morning.

Officials took reporters to site of the attack, where rescue teams were looking for survivors.
Reporters were then taken to a hospital in nearby Sabrata where they were shown nine bodies, including those of two children, plus some body parts, which the officials said were all of people killed in the attack.

Jana said the dead included members of Hamidi's family, it said. The government said Hamidi himself was not hurt.

NATO said it had bombed a "legitimate military target, a command and control node" in the area, and it could not confirm whether civilians had been hurt.
It said NATO does not target specific individuals.

Hamidi is a longtime regime insider who took part in the 1969 coup that brought embattled leader Muammar Gaddafi to power.
He reportedly commanded a battalion that crushed opposition fighters in the nearby western city of Zawiyah in March, and his daughter is married to one of Gaddafi's sons, Saadi.
Gaddafi officials said he was inside a still-intact building at the time of the strike.

On Sunday, the western alliance acknowledged responsibility for killing civilians in Tripoli strike.
It said that t a "weapons failure" had led to the casualties after a strike intended to hit a missile site erred and destroyed a house in the capital shortly after midnight on Saturday.

Libyan officials say NATO forces have killed more than 700 civilians, although they have presented no evidence of large numbers of civilian deaths.
They say one of Gaddafi's sons and three of his grandchildren were killed six weeks ago.

CONDEMNATION
For his part, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, said on Monday civilian deaths pose a risk to NATO’s credibility.
"NATO is endangering its credibility, we cannot risk killing civilians," Frattini told reporters before a meeting for EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg to discuss ways to aid the opposition fighting Gaddafi.

The Arab League, which in March asked the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians, condemned Sunday's mission by NATO.
"When the Arab League agreed on the idea of having a no-fly zone over Libya it was to protect civilians but when civilians get killed this has to be condemned with the harshest of statements," said deputy secretary-general Ahmed Ben Helli.