Word: benghazi
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...bathed by floodlights, providing a beacon for U.S. pilots. Under cover of darkness, 13 F-111 fighter-bombers flying out of Britain, joined by twelve A-6 attack planes launched off carriers in the Mediterranean, blasted military and intelligence targets in and around Tripoli and the coastal city of Benghazi. Going to the source of Libyan fanaticism, four F-111s aimed 16 bombs, each weighing 2,000 lbs., at the Bab al Azizia barracks: the living quarters and command and communications center from which Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had incited, planned or supported terrorist murders throughout the world...
Next on the hit list was the military section of the Tripoli International Airport, base of Libya's fleet of nine Il-76s, which have been used in terrorist operations for supply and transport. A third target was the Benghazi army barracks, which Gaddafi uses as an alternative command post. Then came barracks at the naval port of Sidi Bilal, near Tripoli, a commando training facility. Finally, security officials recommended a strike at the Benina airfield, where Libya's MiG-23 interceptors are based, as a precaution against counterattack...
With one squadron heading for Tripoli and the other for Benghazi, pilots dropped to altitudes under 500 ft. to avoid radar detection. This strict insistence on low-level approaches is a fairly recent development for the U.S. military. "Every pilot loves to do yanks and banks and dive and drive, but this is dangerous until you have attrited the threat," Navy Secretary John Lehman said last week in an interview with TIME. "You have to hit with antiradar devices. This results in an emphasis on night, low-level attack, which can beat any defense if you do it right...
Aircraft carrying such radar-jamming devices, as well as HARM missiles to take out radar sites, were the first to reach the target cities, approaching at 6:54 p.m. Precisely at 7 p.m., the squadron of A-6 fighters roared over Benghazi from the Gulf of Sidra and began bombing the airfield. In Tripoli, part of the F-111 squadron had circled around inland and approached from the south. The city was ablaze with light, and not a single air-raid alarm sounded. "We were able to see the hits," recalled one Navy airman, who had spent many hours studying...
...them on to guide their missiles, they would get a HARM down the throat." Nor was any defense mounted by the Libyan air force, whose pilots are notoriously poor night flyers. Military intelligence intercepted a radio transmission of air force headquarters in Tripoli pleading with a base commander in Benghazi shortly before the attack to get his craft in the air. The commander's reply: immediate takeoff was impossible...