Nato came under verbal fire again yesterday from Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, which accused it of killing 15 more people in strikes on civilian sites in the eastern city of Brega, a claim promptly denied by the alliance.

Meanwhile, three powerful explosions struck the eastern Tripoli suburb of Tajura, where a number of military installations are located, and columns of smoke could be seen from the city centre, AFP correspondents said.

It was not immediately known if the blasts were the result of an attack by Nato, which has repeatedly targeted the area in the past.

And in a likely propaganda coup against Gaddafi in football-mad Libya, 17 of the country’s top players, including national goalkeeper Juma Gtat, have defected to rebels battling to oust him, the BBC reported.

“The colonialist crusader Atlantic coalition bombed civilian sites, among them a bakery and a restaurant in Brega, creating 15 martyrs and more than 20 wounded, among them regular clients of those places,” state television said.

The report, which did not say when the attack took place, referred to a Nato “war of extermination” and “crimes against humanity” in Libya.

However, state news agency Jana said the attack was yesterday and spoke of five more “citizens” killed a day earlier.

Following the Libyan television claim, the Nato spokesman said the alliance “did target buildings in an abandoned area of Brega.

“These were legitimate military targets that were hit. We took a long time to watch the area and make sure. Meticulous planning went into this.”

In its daily operations report, the alliance said that last Friday it had targeted 35 objectives, including military vehicles and installations, around Brega, a key refinery town some 800 km east of Tripoli and 240 km southwest of the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. “Once assessed as clear military targets, precision-guided munitions were employed to end the use of this abandoned civilian neighbourhood as a command and control hub to direct attacks against civilians,” Nato said on Friday. Separately, Operation Unified Protector’s military spokesman Mike Bracken told AFP yesterday: “We take great care to avoid civilian casualties, and even at the last minute we will divert weapons to ensure civilians are not injured.”