Published on 22 Jul 2011
Gaddafi aide severely wounded in rocket attack
A National Transitional Council (NTC) official said today that a member of Muammar Gaddafi's inner circle had been seriously wounded by a rocket attack on a room in Tripoli where senior Gaddafi officials were meeting.
Ali Essawi, in charge of foreign affairs for the NTC fighting Gaddafi, said one of the Gaddafi's sons, Saif al-Islam, Prime Minister al-Baghdadi Ali Al-Mahmoudi, intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi and an official named Mansour Daw were in the room at the time of the attack yesterday.
Daw is a former bodyguard of Gaddafi who is a close aide.
"Yesterday there was a very strong signal in Tripoli - that there was an attack (on) an operations room where there were senior and high, top-level officials including Saif al-Islam, al-Baghdadi Mahmoudi, Abdullah Senussi and Mansour, who (was) severely injured," Essawi told a news conference in Rome.
"We confirm this."
He did not say how he knew of the attack in the Gaddafi-held Libyan capital or who was behind it. Officials of Gaddafi's government were not immediately available for comment.
Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who held talks with Essawi before they addressed reporters together, later said it was not clear which official had been seriously wounded, but that it was "probably" Daw.
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