Taunting NATO, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi said Friday he had survived recent airstrikes and is "in a place where you can't get me." His government accused NATO of killing 11 Muslim clerics with a strike on a disputed eastern oil town.

Gadhafi had appeared on state TV but not been heard speaking since a NATO attack on his Tripoli compound two weeks ago, which officials said killed one of his sons and three grandchildren. In a brief recording played Friday on Libyan TV, Gadhafi said he wanted to assure Libyans concerned about a strike this week on his compound in Tripoli, AP reported.

"I tell the coward crusaders — I live in a place where you can't get to me," he said. "I live in the hearts of millions."

NATO shrugged off the statement.

"We are not targeting him, our targets are solely military," alliance spokeswoman Carmen Romero said in Brussels.

Shortly before Gadhafi's remarks were broadcast, regime spokesman Moussa Ibrahim claimed that NATO had attacked Brega while dozens of imams and officials from around Libya were gathered there to pray for peace. Ibrahim said 11 imams were killed in their sleep at a guesthouse, and 50 people were wounded, including five in critical condition.

NATO, responding to the claim, said it had attacked a military command-and-control center in Brega.

"We're very careful in the selection of our targets and this one was very clearly identified as a command center," said an official at NATO's operational headquarters in Naples, Italy, who under the alliance's rules could not be named.

NATO has been intensifying airstrikes in several areas of Libya against Gadhafi's troops in a bid to weaken his campaign against a rebel uprising. One of the recent strikes hit Gadhafi's main compound in Tripoli, the capital, and more strikes were carried out Friday.