(Image Source: ABC)

BY JIM FLINK

Unconfirmed reports from Libya -- that a NATO air strike has killed the youngest son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
28-year-old Khamis (huh-MEES) Gaddafi commands one of the Libyan regime's toughest fighting units -- the Khamis Brigade.
If he is dead -- it is a key blow to the Gaddafi regime.
First to the accounts of the strike -- from Bloomberg.

“(NATO) aircraft hit an ammunition storage area and a military-police facility late yesterday in Zlitan ... although there was a ‘strong feeling’ among rebels that Qaddafi’s son had been killed, nobody has seen the body; nobody has seen the actual scene.”

Almost immediately -- the Libyan government -- denied the claims.
Instead saying, NATO was fabricating the story -- to cover up for killing civilians.
The Telegraph has the governmental -- and eyewitness response.

“These take place every day, sometimes whole families are killed.  Sometimes individuals. ... The family was sleeping peacefully in their home, the woman and her two children were killed.  Look at this destruction.  This is NATO’s protection of civilians.”

Rebels say more than 30 people were killed -- and spies and radio chatter confirmed Khamis’ death.
If true, the strike could prove doubly important.  Not just for creating a vacuum in Libya’s top fighting forces, but also in mapping a rebel charge on the capitol.  The Financial Times explains...

“Khamis is head of .. one of Col Gaddafi’s most professional and loyal units, which has been fighting in Zlitan, which lies between the rebel-held city of Misrata and the capital Tripoli.  Rebels who cleared Col Gaddafi’s forces from Libya’s third largest city of Misrata have been trying for weeks to push westwards and take Zlitan, which would open the coastal road towards his Tripoli stronghold.”

But there is more than one reason to believe -- the reports of Khamis’ demise -- may be exaggerated.

Al Jazeera reports -- when Gaddafi’s other son Saif (SAFE) was killed -- the mood was much different.

“There’s been no mention of this at all on state television which we have been television which we have been monitoring. And you also have to add to this that we have a claim before that Khamis has been killed by NATO and it proved to be erroneous.  Right now, all the indications are that this is not a valid claim, it has to be said.”