Word: libya
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...overrun by Chadian troops in March, the unburied bodies of five Libyan pilots lay in a pit. Nearby, some 30 Soviet and Czech jet fighters, half of them unscathed, glittered in the sun. The aircraft were a small part of the advanced Soviet bloc weaponry that the forces of Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi left behind as they fled. The value of the abandoned materiel, along with the base itself and Libyan armaments lost in other desert battles, was estimated at nearly $1 billion...
Gaddafi, for his part, emerged last week in Tripoli for a bizarre 20- second appearance marking the anniversary of the 1986 U.S. bombing raid on Libya. After stepping onto a platform before an audience of some 500 mostly foreign guests, Gaddafi inexplicably turned around and left. Aides could not account for the mercurial leader's sudden exit, which left the four-day anti- American get-together to speakers ranging from American Indian militants to seasoned '60s radicals and at least one British Labor...
...attack proved swift, brutal and decisive. In just two hours, Chadian soldiers routed Libyan troops from an airfield that had served as Libya's main support base in northern Chad since 1984, the year after Libya invaded its neighbor in force. The exuberant Chadians claimed they had killed 1,269 enemy troops and taken 438 prisoners while losing just 29 soldiers. Chadian officials also 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...
...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...
...Libya's defeat was caused by more than a logistical gaffe. In recent months France has supplied Chad with Milan antitank missiles (cost: $34,000 each), which have a range of about 2,000 yds. Another factor was the poor morale of the estimated 15,000 Libyan troops in Chad, most of whom are ill trained and poorly paid...