TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libya said a UN-mandated British air strike had hit its major Sarir oilfield killing three guards and damaging a pipeline connecting the field to a Mediterranean port.
“British warplanes have attacked, have carried out an air strike against the Sarir oilfield which killed three oilfield guards and other employees at the field were also injured,” Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaim told reporters.
There was no immediate official comment from Britain’s Ministry of Defence on Kaim’s comments about the field.
Earlier, Muammar Gaddafi’s forces unleashed mortar rounds, tank fire and artillery shells on the western city of Misrata on as a French minister said NATO air strikes in Libya risked getting “bogged down”.
Misrata, Libya’s third city, rose up with other towns against Muammar Gaddafi’s rule in mid-February, and it is now under attack by government troops after a violent crackdown put an end to most protests elsewhere in the west of the country.
Rebels are angry at what they perceive to bea scaling back of operations since NATO took over an air campaign, following an early onslaught led by the United States, France and Britain that at one stage tilted the war in the rebels’ favour.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Gaddafi forces were making it harder for alliance pilots to distinguish them from civilians by hunkering down in populated areas. “The situation is unclear. There is a risk of getting bogged down,” he said.
Juppe told France Info radio he would address the issue of tactics shortly with the head of NATO, adding Misrata’s ordeal “cannot go on”. NATO has accused Gaddafi of using human shields to make targeting harder for its warplanes.
Civil war in the vast North African desert oil producer ignited in February when Gaddafi tried to crush pro-democracy rallies against his 41-year rule inspired by uprisings that have toppled or endangered other autocrats across the Arab world.
Stalemate on the battlefield in eastern Libya, defections from Gaddafi’s coterie and the plight of civilians ensnared in fighting or running out of food and fuel has spurred a flurry of diplomacy in pursuit of a peaceful solution.
But such efforts have made little headway, with the rebels adamant that Gaddafi step down while the government, aware of the limitations of Western intervention, has offered concessions hinting at democratisation but insists he stay in power.
In a blow to rebel finances, Gaddafi forces halted production at rebel-held oilfields in eastern Libya, a rebel spokesman said yesterday. Rebels want to resume exports to raise revenue for their uprising.
Oilfields in Misla and the Waha area were hit by Gaddafi’s artillery on Tuesday and Wednesday, spokesman Hafiz Ghoga told reporters in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.
The Liberian-registered tanker Equator sailed from Marsa el Hariga, near Tobruk, yesterday apparently with the first cargo of crude sold by rebels since the uprising began in February, shipping sources said.
UN-mandated air strikes have so far failed to halt attacks by the Libyan army in besieged Misrata, where residents said snipers on rooftops and tanks firing on populated areas of the city have had a devastating effect.
“Gaddafi forces have changed tactics and are using human shields in urban areas, including in Misrata,” Britain’s Foreign Office said on Wednesday.
The head of Libya’s rebel army has condemned NATO for its slowness in ordering air strikes to protect civilians, saying the alliance was “letting the people of Misrata die every day”.
Juppe said: “We’ve formally requested that there be no collateral damage for the civilian population … That obviously makes operations more difficult.”
But General Abdel Fattah Younes was adamant that Gaddafi was conducting massacres. “Day by day people are dying. Hundreds of families are being wiped off the face of the earth. Patience has its limits,” he said.
Asked whether he found NATO’s argument that it is trying to prevent civilian casualties convincing he said:
“No, it’s not convincing at all. NATO has other means. I requested there be combat helicopters like Apaches and Tigers. These damage tanks and armoured vehicles with exact precision without harming civilians.”
