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Qaddafi After the Raid
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11270 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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5 / 1986 |
1,763 Words |
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Sheila Louise Rees
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The U.S. air attacks on five targets in Benghazi and Tripoli have had an undeniable impact on Colonel Mummer Qaddafi's regime in Libya; however, the precise nature of the impact is difficult to determine.
Every sector of the Libyan populace appears to have rallied around Qaddafi. Intense feelings of patriotism and nationalism have combined with the officially supported, shrill anti-Americanism that has been fundamental to the Qaddafi regime. Thus, despite unconfirmed reports of disturbances in some military units following the attack, especially between the regular army and the air force, and between the army and the militia or "revolutionary guards," these forces previously divided by jealousies and rivalries appear to have uniformly lined up behind Qaddafi.
Indeed, since Secretary of State George Shultz stated publicly that one of the main goals of the United States in carrying our the bombing was to initiate divisions in Libyan society and provoke a military coup against Qaddafi, any Libyan critic of his leader risks being immediately branded an "American agent"--very likely with fatal results.
The road to confrontation actually commenced several years ago when Qaddafi laid claim to sovereignty over a huge expanse of the Mediterranean known as the Gulf of Sidra. That move was plainly illegal under international law, and the U.S. Sixth Fleet routinely contested Qaddafi's claim by steaming through and holding exercises in the gulf. Skirmishes had taken place before. In August 1981, two U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats were attacked by a pair of Soviet-made Libyan Soviet Union-22 fighters over the Gulf of Sidra. Both Libyan planes were shot down.
American naval maneuvers in the Gulf of Sidra were announced last winter, before the December 27 massacres at the Rome and Vienna airports that were carried out by terrorist units organized by the Libyan-financed Abu Nidal organization. In January, Qaddafi declared that Libya would defend its claim to sovereignty over the Gulf of Sidra against any vessel that passed a "line of death" at its northern extremity.
In retrospect, it is clear that Qaddafi was planning to mobilize his terrorist resources for a "shadow war" against the United States months in advance of the March 24 skirmishes over the gulf. Two key gatherings of Libyan-supported terrorists in Tripoli support this view.
First, in early February, Qaddafi called in leaders of some 22 Arab and Palestinian terrorist and revolutionary groups for closed meetings in his headquarters at the Bab al-Aziziyah Barracks. Following Israel's unsuccessful attempt to capture George Habash, Ahmed Jibrill, and Abu Nizal, the chief deputy of Sabri al-Banna (the real name of Abu Nidal), by intercepting the executive jet that had flown them to Tripoli on its return trip to Damascus, they and other international terrorist leaders joined in issuing a public threat at a Tripoli press conference to attack American and Israeli airline passengers.
Gathering forces
Second, in mid-March, Qaddafi hosted a major conference of terrorist, separatist and militant groups that he has been supporting. An estimated 300 people attended. The delegations came from
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