Nato warplanes killed around 14 rebels early on Saturday after a stream of anti-aircraft fire was shot in to the night sky. The victims included medics and a patient in an ambulance, struck near the Libyan front line between rebel and pro-Gaddafi forces east of Brega.
The air strike was the first major friendly fire incident of the chaotic desert war since western aeroplanes joined the fight two weeks ago.
"I only feel sad about the people who died, I don't blame the pilots at all," said Tarek Al-Shagaaby, a law student turned rebel, aged 25. He said he was about one mile away from a huge fireball shortly after midnight and afterwards buried the bodies of the rebels in the desert.
"It was a big disaster for Nato but we don't want the air strikes stopped. Gaddafi has heavy artillery and without Nato he could easily overwhelm us. We buried those we found at the site, they were martyrs."
Mr Al-Shagaaby showed The Sunday Telegraph grisly mobile phone footage he had shot showing skeletal human remains inside vehicles which had been incinerated. Gaddafi's forces later pushed the rebels back a few miles in to the desert away from Brega. (read more)
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