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1986 United States bombing of Libya

The United States Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps carried out air strikes, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, against Libya on 15 April 1986 in retaliation for the West Berlin discotheque bombing ten days earlier, which U.S. President Ronald Reagan blamed on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. There were 40 reported Libyan casualties; one U.S. plane was shot down. One of the claimed Libyan deaths was of a baby girl, reported to be Gaddafi's daughter, Hana Gaddafi.[6] However, there are doubts as to whether she was really killed, or whether she truly existed.[7]

Barracks in Tripoli – Gaddafi's command and control center for overseas operations

Bab al-Azizia

Murrat Sidi Bilal in Tripoli – a training camp for naval commandos and combat frogmen

– used by Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft

Mitiga International Airport

barracks in Benghazi – an alternative command and control headquarters for overseas operations, and which contained a warehouse for storage of MiG aircraft components

Jamahiriyah Guard

– used as a base by defending fighters

Benina International Airport

After several unproductive days of meetings with European and Arab nations, and influenced by an American serviceman's death, Ronald Reagan, on 14 April, ordered an air raid on the following Libyan targets:[21]

4 Long range anti-aircraft missile units with 24 launchers.

S-200 Vega (SA-5 Gammon)

86 and S-125 Neva (SA-3 Goa) anti-aircraft missile units with 276 launchers.

S-75 Volkhov (SA-2 Guideline)

Casualties[edit]

Libyan[edit]

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his family rushed out of their residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound moments before the bombs dropped, forewarned by a telephone call from Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Malta's Prime Minister. Bonnici had been made aware of the presence of the American strike force by Prime Minister Bettino Craxi of Italy; the latter nation had detected the then-unidentified aircraft off the West coast of Sicily and scrambled a flight of F-104 Starfighters to intercept it, discovering the strike force's presence and being warned away by pilots with obvious American accents.[32]


According to medical staff in a nearby hospital, two dozen casualties were brought in wearing military uniforms, and two without uniforms. Total Libyan casualties were estimated at 60, including those at the bombed airbases. An infant girl was among the casualties; her body was shown to American reporters, who were told she was Gaddafi's recently adopted daughter Hana. However, there was and remains much skepticism over the claim.[33][34] She may not have died; the adoption may have been posthumous; or he may have adopted a second daughter and given her the same name after the first one died.[35][36][37][38]

American[edit]

Two U.S. Air Force captains—Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci and Paul F. Lorence—were killed when their F-111 fighter-bomber (callsign Karma-52) was shot down[39][40] over the Gulf of Sidra. In the hours following the attack, the U.S. military refused to speculate as to whether or not the fighter-bomber had been shot down, with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger suggesting that it could have experienced radio trouble or been diverted to another airfield.[41] The next day, the Pentagon had announced it was no longer searching for the F-111 believed to be downed by a Libyan missile.[42] On 25 December 1988, Gaddafi offered to release the body of Lorence to his family through Pope John Paul II. The body, returned in 1989, was identified as Ribas-Dominicci's from dental records. An autopsy conducted in Spain confirmed that he had drowned after his plane was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra. Libya denies that it held Lorence's body. However, Lorence's brother said that he and his mother saw television footage of a Libyan holding a white helmet with the name "Lorence" stenciled on the back.[43] Furthermore, William C. Chasey, who toured the Bab al-Azizia barracks, claimed to have seen two flight suits and helmets engraved with the names "Lorence" and "Ribas-Dominicci", as well as the wreckage of their F-111.[44] Gaddafi declared that the raid was a Libyan victory and stated that three American planes had been shot down, but Karma-52 was the only one that failed to return to base.[3]

victims, who were given an additional US$2 million each after having been paid US$8 million earlier;[74]

Lockerbie bombing

American victims of the 1986 ;[74]

West Berlin discotheque bombing

American victims of the 1989 bombing;[74] and,

UTA Flight 772

Libyan victims of the 1986 U.S. bombing of Tripoli and Benghazi.

[74]

Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration#Libya

2011 military intervention in Libya

US–Libyan air engagement over territorial claim, two Libyan jets shot down

Gulf of Sidra incident (1981)

(February 1986)

Ouadi Doum air raid

Naval battle between Libyan and U.S. forces before the April bombing campaign

Action in the Gulf of Sidra (1986)

U.S.-Libyan air engagement over territorial claim, two Libyan jets shot down

Gulf of Sidra incident (1989)

(1988)

Pan Am Flight 103

(2011)

Operation Odyssey Dawn

List of modern conflicts in North Africa

Cogan, Charles G. "The response of the strong to the weak: The American raid on Libya, 1986". Intelligence and National Security 6#3 (1991): 608–620.

Cohen, David B., and Chris J. Dolan. "Revisiting El Dorado Canyon: terrorism, the Reagan administration, and the 1986 bombing of Libya." White House Studies 5#2 (2005): 153–175.

Fisher, Louis. "The law: military operations in Libya: no war? No hostilities?." Presidential Studies Quarterly 42.1 (2012): 176–189.

online

Laham, Nicholas. The American bombing of Libya: A study of the force of miscalculation in Reagan foreign policy (McFarland, 2007).

Riegert, Kristina (2007). . Peter Lang. pp. 257–259. ISBN 9780820481142.

Politicotainment: Television's Take on the Real

Stanik, Joseph T. "America's First Strike Against Terrorism" Naval History 25#1 (2011): 24+

Stanik, Joseph T. (2003). . Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-983-2.

El Dorado Canyon: Reagan's Undeclared War With Qaddafi

Ulfstein, Geir, and Hege Føsund Christiansen. "The legality of the NATO bombing in Libya." International & Comparative Law Quarterly 62.1 (2013): 159–171.

online

Venkus, Robert E. (1992). . New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-07073-X.

Raid on Qaddafi

Winkler, Carol. "Parallels in preemptive war rhetoric: Reagan on Libya; Bush 43 on Iraq." Rhetoric & Public Affairs 10.2 (2007): 303–334.

online

Zilian, Frederick, Jr. "The US Raid on Libya – and NATO", Orbis (Autumn 1986), pp. 499–519

Zimmermann, Tim. "The American bombing of Libya: A success for coercive diplomacy?." Survival 29#3 (1987): 195–214.

– slideshow by Life

Flashback: 1986 Bombing of Libya

Margaret Thatcher's statement on US bombing of Libya

from Air Force Association magazine

Operation El Dorado Canyon

HarperCollins, 1994

Excerpt from Victor Ostrovsky's The Other Side of Deception

at Air Power Australia (c) July 1986

The Libyan Strike: How The Americans Did It (Operation El Dorado Canyon)