TRIPOLI, Libya | Vandals attacked the Italian and British embassies in the Libyan capital Sunday, hours after dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi escaped a NATO missile strike that officials said killed one of his sons and three young grandchildren. The unrest prompted the United Nations to pull its international staff out of Tripoli.
Britain responded to the attack on its embassy complex, which left the buildings badly burned, by announcing that it was expelling the Libyan ambassador to London.
NATO’s attack on a fortified Gadhafi family compound in a residential area of Tripoli late Saturday signaled escalating pressure on the Libyan leader, who has tried to crush an armed rebellion that erupted in mid-February. Libyan officials denounced the strike as an assassination attempt and a violation of international law.
The bombing also drew criticism from Russia, which cast doubt on NATO’s assertion that the alliance is not targeting Col. Gadhafi or members of his family.
“Statements by participants in the coalition that the strikes on Libya are not aimed at the physical destruction of … Gadhafi and members of his family raise serious doubts,” a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Russia also said the “disproportionate use of force … is leading to detrimental consequences and the death of innocent civilians.” The ministry called for “an immediate cease-fire and the beginning of a political settlement process without preconditions.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a Gadhafi ally, also condemned the strike.
NATO acknowledged that it had struck a “command-and-control building,” but insisted all its targets are military in nature and linked to Col. Gadhafi’s systematic attacks on the population.
“It was not targeted against any individual,” NATO spokeswoman Carmen Romero said Sunday, adding the report of the deaths remained unconfirmed.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, without confirming fatalities, also told the BBC that the strike was in line with the U.N. mandate to prevent “a loss of civilian life by targeting Gadhafi’s war-making machine.”
A NATO warplane bombed a residential complex taking up an entire block in Tripoli’s Garghour neighborhood, which is also home to several foreign embassies. The blast killed Col. Gadhafi’s second-youngest son, Seif al-Arab, 29, when the Libyan leader and his wife, Safiya, were inside, said Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.
Seif Gadhafi was briefly in charge of a military division that early on tried to crush an uprising in Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city and now the stronghold of the rebel provisional government.
Three of Col. Gadhafi’s grandchildren, all younger than 12, were killed, but the Libyan leader was “in good health,” he said. Mr. Ibrahim initially said Seif Gadhafi was the youngest victim of the airstrike.
Bishop Giovanni Martinelli, the top Catholic clergyman in Tripoli, said he was shown six bodies in a hospital in the capital on Sunday. He said he was told that one of the bodies was that of Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, but it was so badly disfigured that he said he could not make a positive identification.
“We saw the body. The body was completely disfigured,” the bishop said.
He said he was told that among the bodies were those of the three children.
Footage broadcast on Libyan TV showed Bishop Martinelli and other clergymen speaking blessings in what appeared to be a morgue. Two of the bodies were covered by green Libyan flags, and a flower wreath was leaned against a wall.a
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