Word: libyans
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With its finely wrought balustrade, the Doric columns supporting its portico, the Villa Pietri looked like a Roman nobleman's villa that had somehow been misplaced on the edge of the African continent. It was the headquarters from which Gaddafi directed the global activities of his terrorist network. The Libyan leader himself had assigned those who went out from the villa to do his bidding their leitmotif: "Everything that puts an infected thorn in the foot of our enemies is good...
...sounded like the plot of an international thriller, as frightening as the fictional tale told in the Collins-Lapierre bestseller in which Libyan Strongman Muammar Gaddafi threatens the U.S. with nuclear blackmail. According to reports received by the U.S. Government, hit teams had been dispatched by Libya to assassinate President Ronald Reagan and other top American leaders. As increasing fragments of evidence about the plot became public last week?some chilling, some bizarre, some literally beyond belief?Washington found itself embroiled in an international confrontation without precedent. If Administration reactions were confusing and contradictory, so were the facts from which...
...refuse to assassinate any person," said the mercurial Libyan leader, a startling statement on the face of it, since his gunmen are believed to have murdered at least a dozen Libyans in exile over the past 18 months because they opposed his regime. Gaddafi continued: "If they have evidence, we are ready to see this evidence." Why then is Reagan taking the rumors seriously, Gaddafi was asked. "Because he is silly, he is ignorant," replied Gaddafi. Next day, when asked about the Libyan leader's remarks by reporters at the White House, Reagan answered, "I wouldn't believe a word...
...Tripoli. Washington refused. Gaddafi made several subsequent overtures, but was rebuffed each time. The Administration wanted not only payment in cash for the embassy damages and an apology from Gaddafi (who refused, because he claimed that he had not sanctioned the attack) but also the release of a Libyan national who had worked at the Tripoli embassy and had been jailed by Gaddafi on charges of spying...
...late July, a Libyan group called the Free Unionist Officers threatened a campaign of "physical liquidation" against Americans, including President Reagan. Then, in mid-August, came the attack by two Libyan SU-22 fighter planes against a pair of U.S. F-14s as they flew over the Gulf of Sidra during a naval exercise by the U.S. Sixth Fleet in disputed waters that Libya had long claimed as part of its territory. The U.S. planes downed the Libyan jets...