Muammar Gaddafi has vowed to continue the fight against NATO until his death. The embattled leader was paying tribute to his friend Khouildi Hamidi, who reportedly lost several members of his family in a NATO air strike.
“We will resist and the battle will continue to the beyond, until you’re wiped out. But we will not be finished,” said a determined Gaddafi on Wednesday, June 22, 2011, in an audio broadcast on Libyan television in homage to his comrade Khouildi Hamidi.
Hamidi, an old friend of the Libyan dictator, reportedly, suffered significant losses on Monday when NATO strikes in Sorman (70 km east of Tripoli) killed several members of his family, including three children.
“Precision Raid”
Some fifteen people were believed to have been killed in the airstrike.
“There’s no longer any agreement after you killed our children and our grandchildren… We have our backs to the wall. You [the West] can move back,” said Gaddafi as he fiercely denounced a NATO operation that saw Khouildi Hamidi’s office in Tripoli bombed a number of times.
NATO confirmed having conducted precision air strikes intended to dismantle a high-level command and control node.
“They were looking for him because he’s a hero. When they didn’t find him in his office they wanted to kill him in his home,” said Gaddafi as he called on observers from the United Nations to confirm that NATO’s target was a civilian site and not a military target.
Colonel Gaddafi has promised to build “the highest” monument “in North Africa” in memory of Khaleda, Hamidi’s 4 year-old granddaughter who was reportedly killed during the operation.
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