Gates Says Qaddafi Planting Bodies at Sites of Coalition Strikes

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has accused Libyan troops of placing bodies at the sites of coalition air strikes and then blaming Western forces for the deaths. Citing intelligence reports, Gates said Muamar Al-Qaddafi’s forces were collecting bodies of people they had killed and dumping them at strike sites. Al-Qaddafi’s government spokesman later claimed that the coalition air strikes had killed around 100 people. “We think this is murder, this is immoral, this is illegal, this is not the mandate of the Security Council,” his spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said. Gates told the U.S. television network CBS that Al-Qaddafi’s days were numbered and “I wouldn’t be hanging any new pictures if I were him.” While not denying the charges of civilian casualties outright, Gates said Al-Qaddafi would have trouble proving it. U.S.-led airstrikes enabled Libyan rebels to retake the key eastern city of Ajdabiya on Saturday, handing U.S. President Barack Obama a tangible achievement after a week of military action.