BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO warplanes destroyed the radar antenna at Tripoli International Airport on Monday, the alliance said, claiming the system was being used for military purposes by Moammar Gadhafi's regime. Libyans said NATO hit civilian radar used by air traffic control to guide U.N. and relief agency flights into the airport.
In fighting on the ground Monday, rebels battled their way inside the oil port of Brega in eastern Libya in an attempt to push out government troops who have held the town for at least two months.
A NATO statement said the air traffic control radar at the civilian airport made NATO jets vulnerable to attacks by Libyan air defenses.
"The antenna, which was previously used for civilian air traffic control, was being used by pro-Gadhafi forces to track NATO air assets in the airspace over Tripoli and to coordinate their own air defense early warning system," the statement said.
NATO, which has bombed dozens of military radar sites in the four-month war, said the no-fly zone over Libya made it unnecessary to use the radar for civilian purposes.
NATO has no ground forces in Libya and does not release any casualty figures from the ground raids. But Naji Daw, acting director of air navigation at Tripoli International Airport, said two people were injured in Monday's control tower attack.
The alliance has been criticized for allegedly overstepping the limited U.N. Security Council mandate that allowed it to launch the airstrikes against Gadhafi's forces. The council imposed a ban on all flights and approved the use of "all measures" to protect civilians.
In the fighting in Brega, rebels in the northeastern residential area fought Gadhafi forces who attacked them from the town's south. The clashes killed five rebels and wounded 10, according to hospital official Mohammed Idris.
Most of the rest of eastern Libya is under rebel control, and early on in the uprising against Gadhafi's rule Brega changed hands frequently.
Another group of rebels attacked the southern part of the town from the desert. Besides the southern neighborhoods, Gadhafi's troops were also still in control of the town's key oil export facilities.
An Associated Press reporter on the scene witnessed the heavy clashes, with both sides using Grad rockets. Heavy black clouds of smoke rose from the city.
Gadhafi's forces have planted hundreds of land mines along the roads around Brega, including on the main road linking it with the rebel-held city of Ajdabiya farther east, according to rebels.
NATO has carried out nearly 6,000 airstrikes since it took over command from a U.S.-led coalition. It claims to have hit hundreds of tanks, armored vehicles, guns, weapons depots, command and control centers and other targets, but it has failed to dislodge Gadhafi's regime.
Only six of NATO's 28 members are currently taking part in the attacks, spearheaded by France and Britain. Some allies have said the operation is unnecessarily diverting attention from NATO's main priority, the war in Afghanistan.
Daw said this was the first strike against the civilian airport in Tripoli. Two missiles hit the top of the control tower, where the radar's rotating dish was located.
Daw said the target was a Spanish-built surveillance radar that wasn't tracking planes but just receiving transponder signals from aircraft that emit them.
"We lost a useful tool" he said. The radar "is used all the time by Red Crescent, Red Cross and U.N. flights, all civilian purposes."
Because of technical limitations, civilian radar cannot track and target aircraft in the same way as military radars. But civilian radar can be used to monitor the airspace and provide general information on the speed and altitude of intruders.
A NATO official argued this made the antenna a threat and thus a legitimate military target.
"There is no requirement for pro-Gadhafi forces to coordinate the airspace ... and all air traffic flow has been effectively coordinated by NATO since the start of the implementation of the no-fly zone," said the official, on condition of anonymity due to standing rules.
"NATO has and continues to control Libyan airspace in order to ensure the safe entrance of all legitimate humanitarian and diplomatic flights entering Libya," he said.
The Convention on International Civil Aviation — also known as the Chicago Convention — forbids attacks on civilian planes or airports, meaning warring sides generally refrain from attacking radars and other navigational aids.
But a leading analyst said the rule was sometimes disregarded, amid claims that these were being covertly used for military purposes — as during the Serb shelling of Sarajevo airport in the Bosnian war or Israel's airstrikes against Beirut airport in 2006.
"Technically it is against international law to go against civilian navigational facilities," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, which promotes aviation safety worldwide. "But the case can sometimes be made that they are not really civilian."
Meanwhile, European Union foreign ministers on Monday condemned the "grave violations of human rights" perpetrated by the Gadhafi's regime, saying the Libyan leader must relinquish power immediately.
In a statement, foreign ministers from the 27 EU countries called on the Gadhafi's followers to defect and "disassociate themselves from its crimes."
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Paul Schemm from Libya and Don Melvin in Belgium contributed to this report.
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