A NATO missile strike killed Moammar Gadhafi's youngest son and three grandchildren on Saturday but the Libyan leader survived, a government spokesman said.

Gadhafi and his wife were in the Tripoli house of his 29-year-old son, Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, when it was hit by at least one bomb dropped from a NATO warplane, according to Libyan spokesman Moussa Ibrahim.

``The leader himself is in good health,'' Ibrahim said. ``He was not harmed. The wife is also in good health.''

Seif al-Arab Gadhafi was the sixth son of Gadhafi and brother of the better known Seif al-Islam Gadhafi. The younger Gadhafi had spent much of his time in Germany in recent years.

``The attack resulted in the martyrdom of brother Seif al-Arab Gadhafi, 29 years old, and three of the leader's grandchildren,'' Ibrahim said. He said Seif al-Arab had studied at a German university but had not yet completed his studies.

Seif al-Arab ``was playing and talking with his father and mother and his nieces and nephews and other visitors when he was attacked for no crimes committed,'' Ibrahim said.

Journalists taken to the walled complex of one-story buildings in a residential Tripoli neighborhood saw heavy bomb damage. The blast had torn down the ceiling of one building and left a huge pile of rubble and twisted metal on the ground.

(AP)