LIBYA: The home of Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law destroyed in a NATO air strike, a neighbour says

Record ID: 340487

  • Title: LIBYA: The home of Muammar Gaddafi's brother-in-law destroyed in a NATO air strike, a neighbour says
  • Date: 20th August 2011
  • Summary: TRIPOLI, LIBYA (AUGUST 19, 2011) (REUTERS) GATE WITH POSTER OF MUAMMAR GADDAFI AND HIS SON SAIF AL-ISLAM STUCK ON IT DESTROYED HOUSE SEEN THROUGH HOLE IN WALL DESTROYED CARS VARIOUS OF PET GAZELLE IN GARDEN VARIOUS OF DESTROYED HOUSE MISSILE HOLE IN ROOF VARIOUS OF CUSHIONS HANGING FROM GARDEN TREES (SOUNDBITE) (English) NEIGHBOUR OMAR MASOOD SAYING: "It's driving
  • Embargoed: 4th September 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Libya
  • Country: Libya
  • Topics: War / Fighting
  • Reuters ID: LVAJGR3CLKI5DF2BKMEFOACSB6P
  • Story Text: A building in Tripoli destroyed overnight by NATO air strikes was the home of Abdullah al-Senussi, the brother-in-law of Muammar Gaddafi and head of Libyan intelligence, a neighbour said.
    Libyan officials brought journalists to the scene of the bombing in a residential area on Friday (August 19), where a compound of buildings was completely destroyed.
    The neighbour, oil engineer Omar Masood, who said he had lived across the street for 35 years, said the compound was the home of Abdullah al-Senussi. He said there was no justification for the attack.
    "This is just ridiculous, this is ridiculous. At four o'clock at night we are sleeping. This is a completely residential area. I built this house in 1973, I know exactly what is around this place. There is no army in this area whatsoever. If you call an airgun or a rifle as weapons, or something like that, everybody in Libya has it - you can see it everywhere. But this is, I mean, this is no major military establishment or complex or whatever you might say," he said.
    The compound that neighbours identified as belonging to Senussi, in the Gargour area of Tripoli, included a number of large buildings, most of which had been reduced to rubble. Journalists were also shown what officials said had been a medical storage facility before the bombing.
    Neighbours said there had been 10 to a dozen air strikes overnight and that the area had been shelled repeatedly in recent weeks.
    "Just as we are doing now, we have to negotiate, talk. This is the only solution to this conflict. You cannot just come and bombard and bombard and bombard and bombard. NATO is North Atlantic Terrorist Origination, I say. They are saying that this is a military establishment. We Libyans say that this is a residential area," Masood said.
    Some neighbours said residents of the compound -- who they said included Senussi and a number of relatives -- had fled the house before the strikes, possibly because they heard aircraft overhead.
    Senussi, the intelligence chief who is married to Gaddafi's sister, is one of three Libyan officials wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague along with Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam.
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