Word: largeau
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...Chadian drive that has all but ended 3 1/2 years of Libyan occupation of the north. When Western reporters toured battle sites recently, they found evidence that Gaddafi's fleeing troops had in some places laid down their arms without firing a shot. Near the oasis town of Faya-Largeau, the Libyans abandoned a column of Soviet- made T-55 tanks with the keys still in the ignition...
...said that in the hasty retreat last week from the air base at Ouadi-Doum, the Libyans left behind a trove of Soviet-made equipment, including combat aircraft, tanks and rocket launchers. The defeat, stated a Chadian military communique, enabled government forces a few days later to seize Faya-Largeau, Gaddafi's last major stronghold in Chad. Even before that final blow, some 3,000 Libyans, fighting despondency and a violent sandstorm, had begun retreating north...
...battles at Ouadi-Doum and Faya-Largeau handed Libyan Strongman Colonel Muammar Gaddafi one of the most ignominious defeats of his 18-year rule. State-run Chadian radio hailed the capture of the 12,500-ft. airstrip at Ouadi-Doum as the "beginning of the end of Gaddafi's expansionist dreams." The debacle not only delivered a near fatal blow to Libya's occupation of northern Chad but also damaged Gaddafi's standing at home, where Libyans are already grumbling about a sickly economy that is suffering from the slump in oil prices...
...only as "instructors" who would provide "logistical support" and exercise a "dissuasive role." Mitterrand added that if threatened, French troops would "respond and, to defend themselves better, not limit their reply to a defensive one." Implicit was a warning that a Libyan push south from the oasis of Faya-Largeau, which was captured by a joint Libyan and rebel force in early August, would produce a military showdown with France...
...French buildup was applauded by the government of Chadian President Hissene Habre, who had been imploring France to intervene directly. But there seemed little likelihood of imminent conflict between the French and Libyan forces. With some 300 miles of desert separating the Libyans at Faya-Largeau from the French forces at the forward redoubts of Sallal and Arada, it would be a bold venture for either side to make a military move. The Libyans are known to have ground-to-air missiles at Faya-Largeau. The French have conventional antiaircraft missiles, while Chadian troops in the forward positions have been...