Word: gaddafi
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...potentates presented the Indians with a security nightmare. To forestall violence or the danger of terrorist attacks, the government had posted battalions of army troops, equipped with machine guns deftly concealed behind flowers, at key intersections throughout the city. At the last minute, Libya's erratic Colonel Muammar Gaddafi abandoned an elaborate scheme to fly into the city in a trio of Learjets, two of them decoys in case someone should try to shoot him down, and stayed home. So did Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who had been scheduled to be host at the nonaligned summit in Baghdad last...
...trouble spots of the Middle East, the only one that offered Washington solace was Libya. A week earlier the U.S. had dispatched air and naval units to the eastern Mediterranean in the face of reports that Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was about to attack Sudan or Chad. U.S. pilots were under orders to follow any Libyan aircraft that attacked their planes "back to the hangars," meaning that they should bomb the airfields from which the Libyan planes had taken off. But the crisis receded as quickly as it had arisen, leading Shultz to declare that "at least...
...movements of the Libyan dictator are being closely monitored. About two weeks ago, in the remote southeast corner of Libya, where that country borders Egypt, Chad and Sudan, Gaddafi began to assemble tanks, troops, aircraft and equipment. The target of his destructive designs was unclear. Sudanese officials recently told Washington that Gaddafi was plotting an elaborate coup against their President Gaafar Nimeiri. Having trained Sudanese dissidents as his agents, Gaddafi planned air raids on Khartoum and a takeover of the capital's airport. Last week, however, the Sudanese disclosed that the Libyan-backed saboteurs had been arrested...
Sudan seems an inconvenient victim for Libyan aggression. The 1,700 miles of desert between Tripoli and Khartoum make supply lines impossible; moreover, Gaddafi would risk sparking the anger of Egypt, which has a mutual defense treaty with Sudan. Another possibility, according to many analysts, is that Gaddafi is training his sights on Chad. In November 1980, he sent Libyan troops to Chad to support former President Goukouni Oueddei in his struggle against former Defense Minister Hissène Habré. But after a 1981 withdrawal of Libyan troops, Habré, backed by Egypt, Israel, Sudan and the U.S., defeated...
Ironically, the country most violently disturbed by these machinations is the one least directly endangered by them: Egypt. President Hosni Mubarak is said to have responded almost hysterically to Gaddafi's most recent feints. At a closed-door meeting two weeks ago, he declared: "If a Third World War will ever start, it will start here-and now." The entire Egyptian air force has been put on general alert, and large army units have been deployed along the Libya-Sudan border. Nonetheless, Gaddafi's meddling seems tireless. Only four weeks ago, the Saudi government executed three officers...