Video- NATO Offers No Apology for Airstrike on Rebel Tanks

C. J. CHIVERS and KAREEM FAHIM
NY Times
April 8, 2011

ZUEITINA, Libya — NATO said on Friday that it would not apologize for the killing of at least four people in what Libyan rebels said was “likely” a mistaken attack on them by allied warplanes in the east of the country — the second case of friendly-fire deaths in a week.

The commander of the rebel army fighting to oust Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi said on Thursday that the target of what he called “a fierce attack” from the air was a column of tanks deployed to the front lines by the insurgents for the first time.

“It is likely it is NATO by mistake,” the commander, Gen. Abdul Fattah Younes, said, adding that the rebels had notified NATO well in advance that the tanks were headed to the battlefield.

But, at a news conference in Naples, where the alliance has its operational headquarters, Rear Adm. Russell Harding, the deputy commander of the NATO operation, said the alliance had not been informed that the rebels were using tanks at the time the attack took place. The military movements in the area where the attack took place were “very fluid” at the time, he said, according to news reports, with vehicles going backward and forward.

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