Word: gaddafi
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...Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak announced one of the year's most bizarre plots: he had succeeded in embarrassing Gaddafi by ensnarling the Libyan dictator in one of his own adventures. The previous day, the Tripoli government radio had gleefully announced that a Libyan "suicide squad" had assassinated former Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Bakkush in Cairo. In fact, the assassins' plot had been uncovered by Egyptian authorities before the hitmen reached their intended victim. Bakkush was roughed up by the Egyptians, smeared with human blood and photographed to look as if he had been murdered. The pictures were...
...Washington, French Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson struggled to relieve his country's embarrassment over the Chad affair. Said he: "Gaddafi is a fact. He is the leader of Libya, an independent country. To ignore him would be a political mistake." France has resumed negotiations with Libya over the troop withdrawal, an action opposed by Washington on the ground that there is no point in bargaining with one of the chief instigators of international terrorism. But Cheysson insisted: "What would the U.S. have us do? Enter into war with Libya? The only reasonable policy is the one we have said...
...spite of the diplomatic debacle, Mitterrand appeared unruffled at a meeting at the Elysee Palace with West German Chancellor Kohl to discuss Kohl's trip to the U.S. and the entry of Spain and Portugal into the European Community. Asked about the presence of his name on Gaddafi's assassination list, Mitterrand said with an impatient smile, "If some thing happens, we will let you know." Said Kohl: "We will wait to see the developments [of the Egyptian inquiry], and we remain calm." One French official, referring to the arrest of the Libyan assassination team, down-played...
Mubarak was clearly elated over his triumph. In August the Egyptian President accused Gaddafi of mining the Red Sea and in October of plotting to blow up the Aswan Dam. In neither case, however, did he have solid evidence. But this time, said a Western diplomat in Cairo, "the Egyptians hooked him. He swallowed everything before they hauled him in." British officials are skeptical of the whole affair, and government sources in London have suggested that Egypt has gone slightly overboard in its version of what occurred...
Western analysts were puzzled as to exactly what Gaddafi had hoped to achieve by the assassination of Bakkush or the doublecrossing of France over the Chad pullout. Referring to Chad, Dominique Moïsi of the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, a Paris-based think tank, suggested, "It could be some thing as simple as Third World pride. He wanted to negotiate on his conditions. He had told the French that he wanted two months to evacuate [instead of the 45 days stipulated in the Franco-Libyan agreement that became effective on Sept. 25]. It looks like...