Word: libya
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WORLD: The U.S. and Israel ponder retaliation for the airport massacres 26 Libya's Gaddafi vows defiance as Washington and Jerusalem agonize over how to hit back for the Rome and Vienna attacks. Meanwhile, the shadowy figure suspected of masterminding those terrorist acts and many others remains on the loose. Pakistan's Zia ends martial law and a 20-year state of emergency. The new year gets off to a bloody start in South Africa...
...seemingly inevitable counterstrike by Israel, or possibly the U.S. against the perpetrators of the Dec. 27 terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports that left 19 people dead and 112 injured. All signs pointed to Abu Nidal, the shadowy leader of a renegade Palestinian group currently based in Libya (see following story), as the man who masterminded the slaughter. Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi taunted the U.S. and Israel, declaring that a retaliatory strike against his country, which openly supports and encourages Nidal and his accomplices, would set off a "tit for tat" cycle of violence. Libyans, warned Gaddafi, would...
...situation was fraught with danger, not least for the 1,500 U.S. citizens who still live in Libya despite repeated warnings by Washington to leave. But perhaps the most serious risk was to the Middle East peace process, an ultimate aim of which is a resolution of the Palestinian problem that underlies the current epidemic of terrorism. As the U.S. aircraft carrier Coral Sea left Naples with its support vessels to begin what U.S. officials called "routine operations in the central Mediterranean," the widespread assumption was that the Navy was getting into position in case President Reagan gave the order...
...week's end it was still unclear whether the West's anger against the terrorists and their Libyan backers would result in any kind of military action. Among U.S. allies that opposed the intervention were Britain, France and West Germany, all of which have trade links with Libya. Both the White House and the Pentagon insisted that a U.S. strike was unlikely, but at the same time the planning continued. One favored option called for an aerial engagement against Libyan fighters over the Gulf of Sidra, followed by strikes against one or more of the five main air bases strung...
...taken. But one high-ranking West European official said, "We would not be surprised if the military option is shortly engaged." Like the U.S. interception of an Egyptian airliner carrying the alleged hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro to freedom, that move would send an unmistakable message to Libya, Abu Nidal, the P.L.O. and any other sources of terrorism: such acts against U.S. citizens will not go unanswered. Whether that would have any effect on discouraging future terrorism was quite another question. --By William E. Smith. Reported by Walter Galling/Rome, Gertraud Lessing/Vienna and Robert Slater/Jerusalem, with other bureaus