Word: lampedusa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Western Europe jittery American allies wondered whether Reagan was once again indulging himself by kicking his favorite terrorist -- and what the cost would be. Military bases went on alert in Italy, where Lampedusa Island was the target of an amateurish Libyan missile attack after the U.S. bombing of Tripoli in 1986. Britain supported the U.S. assertion that Rabta is intended for weapons production, but the Thatcher government urged Washington not to attack it. The French, who are host to the chemical-weapons conference at UNESCO headquarters, were irritated. The sharpest criticism came from the leftist Paris daily Liberation: "Gaddafi...
Libya's only military riposte to the raid was feeble. On Tuesday afternoon it launched two Soviet-made SS-1 ballistic missiles, each with about a ton of dynamite in its warhead, in the general direction of the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Fired from a military base near the Tunisian coast, they were evidently aimed at a Coast Guard navigational aid facility located on Lampedusa. Both missiles exploded three miles short of land...