TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said he did not fear death and defiantly vowed to fight “to the beyond,” as NATO insisted there would be no let-up in its air war despite Italian calls for a cessation. “We will resist and the battle will continue to the beyond, until you're wiped out. But we will not be finished,” Gaddafi said in an audio message broadcast on Libyan television late Wednesday. “There's no longer any agreement after you killed our children and our grandchildren... You (the West) can move back,” the strongman said in homage to his comrade Khuwildi Hemidi, several members of whose family were killed Monday in NATO raids on his residence. “We are not frightened. We are not trying to live or escape,” Gaddafi said, denouncing what we called a crusade against a Muslim country targeting civilians and children. NATO has acknowledged its warplanes early Monday hit Sorman west of Tripoli but insisted the target was military, a precision air strike against a “high-level” command and control node. Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said 15 people, including three children, were killed in the attack, which he slammed as a “cowardly terrorist act which cannot be justified.”
