Rebel leader Davek Wattiffi told us "Our hearts were greatly troubled, for although we have never studied your warfare we believed that western armies showed their close relationships with their allies by accidentally killing them. We understood that the Americans do not believe that they are having a happy war unless they have killed many of their friends who have foolishly turned their backs.

"Our confusion has always been great on this matter as we do things very differently in Libya. For many years now we have waged war in such a way that we only kill the ones we call 'baddies' while doing our best to keep our 'goodies' alive. This has nothing to do with your Bill Odie by the way - we would shoot him. We would shoot him a lot.

"We had started to think that we had misunderstood your traditions, for you were not killing us before saying 'sorry about that chum' or similar. In addition we thought that maybe the Americans had a bit of a cold as their hearts did not seem to be in it. Here was the chance for them to shoot things and to blow things up like the A-Team but with more death. Why did they not take it? Mr Obama is soft. With Mr Bush the mindless violence would have been immediate.

"So when the news of NATO's mistake came it felt like the bitter-sweet moment when I return to my wife after spending a month in the desert without her pleasures only to have to explain to her why I have camel hair on my underpants. 'Davek,' they told me, 'There is good news and there is bad news. Which do you want first?' I replied 'I shall have the good news,' and they said 'NATO have shown us their great friendship.' So I asked for the bad news. They said 'You know those tanks that you liked...?'"

NATO Rear Admiral Russ Harding released a statement earlier today saying "We are not saying sorry. It's entirely their own fault for looking like the wrong type of Libyans. And fancy having tanks! For goodness sake, our intelligence indicated that the rebels had only a big rock each and a stick that they shared between three of them, and all through this entire conflict they have refused to dress in bright yellow clothing and then they have the bloody nerve to complain when we accidentally shoot them to death.

"I've a good mind to pack up and leave them to it. I bloody well would too but we'd be leaving all of those poor civilians that we haven't accidentally killed yet in the hands of murderers. It's the civilians that were here for after all. 

"All of those poor, poor, oil-owning civilians."