Tripoli Bombed, Gadhafi Lashes 'Colonial Plot'

NATO warplanes blitzed a string of military targets in Tripoli on Sunday, an official said, as embattled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi blamed a "colonial plot" for the conflict engulfing his country.

"In Tripoli there were two command and control nodes, two surface-to-air missile launchers and one anti-aircraft gun (hit)," a NATO official said from the mission's headquarters in Naples, Italy.

An Agence France Presse reporter said two blasts occurred at 00:50 am (2250 GMT) in the area housing Gadhafi's residence in the heart of the capital, followed by others in the city's eastern and southeastern suburbs.

A column of smoke was seen over Gadhafi's residential complex, which had been targeted by NATO warplanes on Saturday, when the transatlantic military alliance confirmed seven strikes and said they hit a military command node.

Gadhafi meanwhile late Saturday said in an audio message broadcast on state television that the unrest that has swept his country since a popular uprising erupted mid-February was a "colonial plot." He did not elaborate.

He also denied accusations by international rights groups of a brutal suppression of dissent and allegations that his regime had killed thousands of protesters.

"They lie to you and say, 'Libya kills its people with bullets, that is why we have come to protect civilians'," Gadhafi said, referring to the NATO air campaign which was mandated by the United Nations with the aim of protecting civilians in Libya.

"Only eight people have been killed and an inquiry is under way to determine who killed them. There are no protests and no gunfire. Show us where the thousands of people (reportedly killed) are buried," Gadhafi said.

The latest NATO strikes came after rebel forces said they had lost 16 fighters east of Tripoli and had infiltrated the capital and attacked a regime command post where a son of the strongman was among officials targeted.

The rebels, who have been fighting to oust Gadhafi for more than five months, said the assault "seriously injured" a high-ranking member of Gadhafi's security forces.

On Thursday, "there was an attack on an operations center of top regime officials, including Seif al-Islam Gadhafi," National Transitional Council vice president Ali Essawy said after meeting Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini in Rome.

He said one person was "seriously injured," identifying him as a high-ranking security official.

Frattini said the "rocket attack against an operations center" probably in a Tripoli hotel was aimed at "top officials ... including Gadhafi's son Seif, and the head of the secret service, Abdullah al-Senussi."

On Thursday, unconfirmed rumors swirled that rebels in Tripoli had tried to assassinate senior regime members that day.

Libyan officials denied the attack occurred and denounced as "criminal and unjustified" what they said were NATO raids that killed six guards at a pipeline factory south of an oil plant in the eastern town of Brega.

"There was no attack," government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters of the rebels' claims that they had attacked a Tripoli command post.

Rebel forces, he said, were losing their battles in the east of the country and to the southwest and were trying "to boost their morale with lies and small victories."

Germany said Sunday meanwhile it was making available to the Libyan rebel National Transitional Council up to 100 million euros ($144 million) in loans for civilian and humanitarian purposes.

"Because of Colonel Gadhafi's war against his own people the situation in Libya is extremely difficult," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in a statement issued in Berlin.

"There is a lack of means to build up the necessary structures and to relieve supply shortages, all the way from medical equipment to food. People are suffering more and more as a result, particularly in eastern Libya."

On the battlefield, the rebels said 16 of their men were killed in two days of fighting for Zliten, the last coastal city between insurgent-held Misrata and the capital.

The insurgents have been trying for weeks to take Zliten, 200 kilometers from Tripoli and 40 kilometers west of Misrata.

The rebels say they have chased the bulk of Gadhafi's forces from Brega in the east and are poised to advance toward the capital from Misrata and their other western enclave in the Nafusa Mountains, southwest of Tripoli.

Rebels at Brega now face "negligible" resistance, military spokesman Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani said.

In the west, the Nafusa campaign is focused on Asabah, gateway to the garrison town of Gharyan on the highway to Tripoli.