Word: gaddafis
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Only a week earlier the Libyans had managed to reverse a string of Chadian victories by retaking a key oasis town near the border. Angered by the setback at Maaten es Sarra, Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi last week ordered a retaliatory air strike on N'Djamena. But as two Soviet-built Tupolev-22 bombers approached the capital, French troops fired a U.S.-made Hawk antiaircraft missile. One of the jets exploded in a green phosphorescent fireball, and the other fled toward Libya. Two other Tupolevs later struck the town of Abeche, some 400 miles to the east, killing two civilians...
...greeted Gaddafi's latest setbacks with unconcealed glee. "We basically jump for joy every time the Chadians ding the Libyans," said a U.S. official. State Department Spokesman Charles Redman asserted that "Libya has illegally occupied Chad for a number of years" and is believed to have up to 5,000 troops in the country, mostly in the Aozou Strip. The Reagan Administration has provided $33 million in military aid to Chad over the past ten months and last week was considering a new request for antiaircraft Stinger missiles. The White House hopes that Libya's losses in the war will...
...appeases, that authority grows unchallenged. Munich is the model. Once the outside world returns fire, that shock alone can be enough to shake the foundations of the despot's power. The American air raid on Libya is the model. Its military significance was minimal. Its psychological significance was enormous. Gaddafi has since been in retreat. And not just on the terrorism front. Within a year, his demoralized forces were routed and expelled from Chad, perhaps the weakest state in Central Africa...
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi suffered the worst defeat of his 18-year rule of Libya five months ago when his troops were driven out of northern Chad. Last week Chadian President Hissene Habre sought to double the Libyans' humiliation by sending his army to capture the Aouzou Strip, a disputed border region. Though the foray did not produce the "total defeat" of Libyan forces claimed by Chad, it resulted in the fall of the town of Aouzou, the strip's administrative center...
...Gaddafi denounced the "colonial aggression" by Habre, who has the backing of France and the U.S., and sent waves of Soviet-built Tupolev bombers to assault Chadian villages and troops. The planes even penetrated the part of Chad guarded by French forces, drawing a stern reminder from Paris that France was still prepared to use military means to support its former colony...