Word: libyans
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...Libya tried to interfere with the fighter patrols, the Navy pilots would undoubtedly defend themselves, as in 1981, when they knocked down two Libyan jets over the gulf after one had opened fire. But targets within Libya also look tempting to some U.S. strategists. One is an expanding military air base, nine miles south of the coastal city of Surt, where intelligence satellites show construction of twelve Soviet SA-5 ground-to-air missile sites. Another potential target is a nuclear-reactor project being built along the coast with Soviet help. A dangerous complication: the reactor and the batteries...
Gaddafi branded the Navy exercise "aggressive provocation," which seemed roughly accurate. Ordering his armed forces on "total alert," he sent aircraft to fly over the gulf "to defend Libya's territorial waters." On Friday four Libyan MiG fighters headed toward the U.S. carriers, which were then about 300 miles offshore and well north of the point that Gaddafi calls "the line of death" and has staked out as his sea boundary (midway between the 32nd and 33rd parallels, 130 miles from the Libyan coast). When Navy jets were directed toward the Libyan aircraft, the Libyan pilots quickly turned back...
...Despite such tough talk, Gaddafi has actually been scrambling to avoid a confrontation. His intermediaries last week offered Italy a secret pledge not to harbor terrorists. (It was rejected; Italy wants a public promise.) "Our impression is that Gaddafi is scared," said an Italian official. The pressure on the Libyan dictator can only increase as U.S. forces approach--and probably cross--his unenforceable boundary...
...airport atrocity, or perhaps Colonel Khadafy will change his ways. The latter seems unlikely. But it is Libya which has made the leap to war, and this is the pivotal fact in my personal decision to fight when the nation deems war is the only option left to check Libyan aggression against our citizens...
...Opposition critics charged that Mubarak had played into the hands of the U.S. and Israel by claiming that Libya had been behind the hijacking. Foreign Minister Esmat Abdel Meguid sharply denied , Libya's claim that Egypt was considering a strike against its troublesome neighbor. He added, however, that if Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi were to "start a military or aggressive action against us," then "that is another story...