進入英語學習論壇下載音頻 去聽寫專區一展身手

Angry mobs have attacked Western embassies and a UN office in Tripoli after NATO bombed Muammar Gadhafi's family compound in an attack officials said killed the leader's second youngest son and three grandchildren, ages 6 months to 2 years.

Russia said the Western alliance exceeded its UN mandate of protecting Libyan civilians with the strike.

The embassies vandalized on Sunday were empty and nobody was reported injured, but the attacks heightened tensions between the Libyan government and Western powers, prompting the UN to pull its international staff out of the capital.

The bombing did not slow the attacks by government forces on rebel strongholds in the western part of Libya that have remained largely under the control of the government. The rebel port of Misrata, which has been besieged by Gadhafi's troops for two months, came under heavy shelling on Sunday, and at least 12 people were killed, a medic said.

Gadhafi has repeatedly called for a cease-fire, most recently on Saturday, but has not halted his assault on Misrata, a city of 300,000 where many people have been killed since the rebellion against Libya's ruler erupted in mid-February.

The rebels, who control most of eastern Libya, have been unable to gain an advantage on the battlefield despite weeks of NATO airstrikes. Alliance officials and allied leaders emphatically denied they were hunting Gadhafi to break the stalemate between the better trained government forces and the lightly armed rebels.

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi escaped a US airstrike targeting his father's compound in Tripoli in 1986. Twenty-five years later, the Libyan leader's second-youngest son was reportedly killed in a NATO airstrike.

Libyan officials announced on state TV that Seif al-Arab, whose name means Sword of the Arabs, was killed along with three of Gadhafi's grandchildren in a NATO airstrike against his house in the Tripoli neighborhood of Ghargour on Saturday. The Libyan leader and his wife were inside but escaped unharmed, according to Libyan officials.

Seif al-Arab, 29, was one of the least prominent of Gadhafi's eight biological children, with no clear political or military power.

去聽寫專區一展身手

（中國日報網英語點津 Julie 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

Lee Hannon is Chief Editor at China Daily with 15-years experience in print and broadcast journalism. Born in England, Lee has traveled extensively around the world as a journalist including four years as a senior editor in Los Angeles. He now lives in Beijing and is happy to move to China and join the China Daily team.