Libya rebels say NATO overnight strike killed Qaddafis son

Libya’s rebel forces on Friday said an overnight night NATO strike on an operations center in the western town of Zliten has killed Muammar Qaddafi’s son Khamis and 32 others.Citing spies operating among Qaddafi’s ranks, Mohammed Zawawi, a spokesman for revolutionary militia groups, told a foreign news agency that Khamis was confirmed to be among the dead.There was no immediate comment from the government or NATO and it was not immediately possible to verify the deaths.Khamis is head of Libya’s 32nd Brigade, one of Gaddafi’s most professional and loyal units, which has been fighting in Zlitan, which lies between the rebel-held city of Misrata and the capital Tripoli.Earlier on Friday, the state television said that NATO warplanes bombed the Libyan capital, as Qaddafi’s regime accused rebels of sabotaging a key pipeline feeding the country’s sole functioning refinery and as France stressed that international military operation in Libya was not bogged down.Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled Kaaim meanwhile said that rebel forces had sabotaged a pipeline in the Jebel Nefussa region, a mountainous area southeast of Tripoli.“The rebels turned off a valve and poured cement over it,” he said, adding that this would lead to a shortage of electricity in the capital as oil and gas were used at the Zawiyah refinery to generate power.Kaaim said food and medicine supplies were spoiling in the capital due to long power cuts. Tripoli residents complained Thursday of extensive blackouts and an acute shortage of gas canisters.NATO “wants to create a humanitarian crisis in Libya while the aim of its mission is to protect civilians,” Mr. Kaaim said.