Nato admitted conducting an air strike in Sorman on Monday but insisted the target was of a military nature after Libya said 15 people, including three children, were killed in a Nato air strike on Monday.
The military alliance said in a statement that Nato warplanes carried out a precision air strike against a "high-level" command and control node in the Sorman area on Monday.
The fresh civilian deaths came just hours after Nato acknowledged that one of its missiles had gone astray early on Sunday and struck a residential neighbourhood of Tripoli.
A Nato official said the alliance was aware of regime allegations that 15 people, including three children, were killed in the air raid but had no way of verifying them. Another official said earlier that the alliance had not conducted any air strikes in Sorman.
Earlier, the government spokesman accused Nato of a "cowardly terrorist act which cannot be justified" as journalists were shown damaged buildings on the sprawling estate of a veteran comrade of Muammar Gaddafi west of the capital and nine corpses, as well as body parts including one of a child.
Journalists were taken on an escorted tour of the estate of Khuwildi Hemidi, who served on the Revolution Command Council which Kadhafi set up when he seized power in 1969.
Later the journalists were driven to the Sabratha hospital where a news correspondent saw nine corpses, including the bodies of two children. There were also body parts of other victims, including a child's head.
A second Libyan official charged that eight missiles had struck the estate at 4 am. He said most of the dead were members of Hemidi's family, including two of his grandchildren, and that the rest came from two other families living on the estate. Hemidi himself escaped unharmed, the official added.
Meanwhile, Nato admitted that a missile strike had killed nine cilvilians on Sunday. "Nato acknowledges civilian casualties in Tripoli strike," a statement said.
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