Nightly News   |  April 08, 2011

NATO blames chaos for friendly fire in Libya

Still hoping NATO will be able to safely back them up, rebel forces in Libya continued on Friday to battle to keep the town of Ajdabiyah out of Gadhafi's hands. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

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>>> turning overseas to the rebellion in libya and the clashing between anti- gadhafi rebels and nato . it was the second friendly fire incident in a week, but as stephanie reports from rebel territory, an apology was hard to come by.

>> in benghazi, friday prayers turned into friday funerals for rebel forces killed by natdo. the jet fighters hit rebel tanks just outside of brega thursday morning, killing at least five and wounded more than a dozen. today, nato blamed confusion on the ground and said they didn't even know the rebels were using tanks.

>> i'm not apologizing. the situation on the ground, as i said, was extremely fluid and remains extremely fluid.

>> but the commander of the rebel forces said they had told nato of the tanks. their first real use of heavy armor since the war began.

>> it's difficult to strike by mistake 20 tanks deployed.

>> nato did eventuallyapology, but the d amage was done and perhaps lessons learned. rebels painted bright stripes on their vehicles, hoping nato wouldn't make any new mistakes before the shelling began again. for the second day in a row, gadhafi loyalists hit the western edge of the city with artille artillery. this is the last major town on the road to the rebel capital of benghazi. it has come under attack twice in the last two weeks with the latest round of shelling, streets are completely deserted. this family had just returned thinking they were safe.

>> we came back a couple days ago. we managed to wash and get a change of clothe.

>> now the family of eight is leaving again. rebel forces stay behind to keep this town from gadhafi 's hands, still hoping nato will help them do it. nbc news.