AUSTRALIA__Rudd defends NATO's mission in Libya

Rudd defends NATO's mission in Libya

By Jeremy Thompson
Posted 2 hours 43 minutes ago

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has denied NATO forces are deliberately targeting Libyan dictator Moamar Gaddafi or his family.

Libyan officials say a son and three grandchildren of Mr Gaddafi were killed in a NATO air strike yesterday.

But Mr Rudd says the strike was against Libyan command and control facilities as sanctioned by the United Nations.

He says the UN resolution "empowers them to take all necessary measures to protect the Libyan people from attack by the Libyan regime".

"Command and control centres are central to that. My best advice is that's what's been targeted here as well," Mr Rudd said from Washington.

"The targeting doctrine employed by NATO has been conservative against the mandate it has been delivered.

"But when you are dealing in a war situation, where you are charged by the international community to protect innocent civilians from the Gaddafi war machine - which at one stage recently threatened to rip Benghazi apart including its population of 700,000 people - it's important that NATO is able to also target the command and control structures of the Libyan regime's armed forces."

He says so far he cannot confirm the death of Mr Gaddafi's family members.

"The Australian Government, together with other allied governments regrets any loss of innocent civilian life as a consequence of military activities in the course of this Libyan conflict."

Meanwhile, Mr Rudd has won a place on a NATO-dominated panel to guide the conflict in Libya and provide humanitarian relief.

He says the Libyan Contact Group is charged with working on a political solution with the Interim National Congress of Libya, the rebel group's interim government, which has its headquarters in Benghazi.

Mr Rudd joins the US secretary of state and the foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan on the panel.