UK expels Libyan envoy,UN pulls out staff from Tripoli

“The Vienna Convention requires the Gaddafi regime to protect diplomatic missions in Tripoli,” Hague said.

“By failing to do so that regime has once again breached its international responsibilities and obligations. I take the failure to protect such premises very seriously indeed,” he was quoted as saying by BBC.

Foreign missions in Tripoli today were target of attack by angry crowds amid reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his wife escaped a NATO missile strike at the residence in Tripoli of his youngest son,who was killed along with three grandchildren.

Though UK currently has no diplomats in Tripoli,the embassy premises in Tripoli came under attack.

According to BBC,the UN was pulling out its international staff from the Libyan capital after some of its facilities were targeted by agitated crowds.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said NATO’s targeting policy was “in line with the UN resolution”.

“It is about preventing a loss of civilian life by targeting Gaddafi’s war-making machine,so that is obviously tanks and guns,rocket launchers,but also command and control,” he said.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told reporters last week that the command and control centres of the Libyan regime were “legitimate” targets,although he said NATO was not seeking to assassinate Gaddafi.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said in Tripoli that the house of Saif al-Arab,one of the Libyan dictator’s seven sons,was attacked last night with “full power”.

Ibrahim claimed “the leader himself is in good health, he wasn’t harmed”,but it resulted in “the martyrdom of brother Saif al-Arab Muammar Gaddafi,29 years old,and three of the leader’s grandchildren.”

Acknowledging that it had carried out the air strike, NATO,however,did not deny or confirm the reported deaths.

A NATO spokesman said the strike had hit a “known command and control building in the Bab al-Azizya neighbourhood”.

The attack on the villa in the Bab al-Aziziya compound was the second attempt by NATO to target Gaddafi in 24 hours.

A NATO air strikes yesterday had hit a site close to the television building while Gaddafi was making a TV address in which he offered talks but vowed not to quit.

Britain,France and Italy have agreed to send military officers to Libya to advise the rebel forces on technical, logistical and organisational issues amid warnings that thecivil war was “moving towards stalemate”.