Word: libya
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...inflammatory rhetoric showed that tempers are still hair-trigger short in the Middle East -- while arms proliferation speeds virtually uncontrolled, rendering the region a tinderbox. Not only Iraq, but also Egypt, Iran, Israel, Libya and Syria have chemical weapons, and all possess the means to deliver chemical warheads to enemy targets, either by missile or by aircraft. Suddenly, Israel's long-presumed nuclear capability, still a monopoly despite Saddam's best efforts, does not seem to be an effective deterrent. "The situation is similar to the balance between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the mid-1950s," says Gerald...
Meanwhile, arms proliferate throughout the Middle East. Last week Libya successfully tested a system to refuel fighter-bombers in midflight, thus improving Tripoli's ability to attack Israel. In Beijing witnesses photographed a heavily guarded convoy of flatbed trucks carrying a total of 26 short-range missiles toward the port of Tianjin. Although it cannot be proved that the missiles are destined for the Middle East, it is feared that they are intended for delivery to Syria or Iran...
...Semtex in a radio-cassette player and smuggling it aboard in a suitcase. Semtex is also thought to have been used to destroy a French DC-10 over the Sahara last September, killing 170 people. While visiting London last week, President Vaclav Havel acknowledged that his Communist predecessors sold Libya alone 1,000 tons of the stuff. Said Havel: "If you consider that it takes 200 g ((6 oz.)) to blow up an aircraft, this means world terrorism has enough Semtex to last for 150 years...
Current clients include India, China, Cuba, Viet Nam, Syria, Iran and, biggest of all, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya. A large-scale purchaser on its own, Libya has long been known to be a conduit for Czechoslovak-made arms to such terrorist groups as Abu Nidal's Fatah Revolutionary Council, Italy's Red Brigades and the Irish Republican Army...
With tighter international embargoes on Libya, Washington doubts that Gaddafi will be able to rebuild. "It's a darned shame," said U.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, grinning...