Dealing with a Dictator below his "Line of Death"

USS America (CV 66), USS John F. Kennedy (CV 67), USS Nimitz (CVN 68), and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) fill Piers 11 and 12 at Naval Station Norfolk to the brim in numerical order on October 1, 1985.  America's deployment to the Mediterranean beginning in March the following year would be an eventful one, capped by strikes against Libya.  (Wikimedia Commons)

USS Coral Sea (CV 43) passes USS Farragut (DDG 37) as she passes Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 1985.  The following year, both ships would become involved in military operations against Libya. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum file)

By Thomas Grubbs
Contributing Writer


Introduction

The phrase “state sponsor of terrorism” is one that has been thrown around so often in the last twenty years that it has lost some of its gravity.  That being said, there are some nations, particularly the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran, that do engage in such acts to near universal international condemnation today.  Older readers may recognize that one nation has been left off of this list: Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi

Libya is a large nation on the North African coast, sandwiched between Egypt to the east and Tunisia and Algeria to the west. Located along ancient trade routes between Africa and Europe, the nation has been inhabited since the late Bronze age by the ancestors of the Berber people and incorporated into the Carthaginian, Roman and Ottoman Empires before being conquered by Italy in 1911. Interestingly, the Barbary Wars of the early 19th century that marked the first tentative steps onto the international stage by the United States Navy were waged against pirates operating from Libyan ports that marked the start of a long and difficult history between the two nations. During the Second World War, it was the scene of heavy fighting between the British 8th Army and the German Afrika Corps. At the end of 1951, a newly independent Libya was handed over to the Libyan people as a constitutional monarchy under the hereditary leadership of King Idris I.

The discovery of significant oil reserves in 1959 transformed what was one of the poorest nations on earth into one of the wealthiest. However, thanks to the incompetence and corruption of the king and his inner circle, most of the resulting oil wealth fell into the hands of a few extremely wealthy individuals. Idris was overthrown on September 1, 1969, in what has become known as Al Fateh Revolution by a group of rebellious army officers led by a young signal corps colonel named Muammar Gaddafi.

Col. Gaddafi in 1970. (Stevan Kragujevic via Tanja Kragujevic/Wikimedia Commons)

Born into a poor Berber family in 1942, Gaddafi entered the Royal Military Academy in 1963 as this was the only method of upward social mobility for poor Libyans at the time. Disgusted by Idris’ corruption and close ties to the West, he was the ringleader of the Al Fateh Revolution that overthrew the monarch and replaced him with what was on the surface a progressive liberal democratic government. A promoter of Islamic Socialism and an Islamic modernist, he built closer ties to neighboring Egypt, expelled the nation’s Jewish and Italian minorities, removed western military bases on Libyan soil (including Wheelus Air Base, which was at one time the largest American military facility outside the United States), made Sharia law the basis of the Libyan criminal justice system and unsuccessfully lobbied for pan-Arab political union under Libyan leadership.

The centerpiece of an intensive cult of personality, he ruled by decree and maintained control of both the military and foreign relations apparatus despite the formation of the Basic People’s Congresses, allegedly a system of direct democracy. He wrote down his political and societal views, known as the Third International Theory, in the Green Book which became required reading for all Libyans. In addition to the political reforms, he also attempted to eradicate endemic diseases such as malaria, raised the minimum wage, improved higher education, nationalized and expanded the oil industry that provided much of the national GDP and removed many societal restrictions on women to vastly improve the standard of living within the country.

Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat shares a laugh with Col. Gaddafi in 1977. (Wikimedia Commons)

By the late 1970s, he became more and more communistic in outlook, consolidating power into his own hands, seizing control of the press, suppressing civil liberties, seizing private property and monetary wealth over a certain amount, and dismantled the existing legal system, drawing significant domestic backlash primarily from Islamic fundamentalists. His personal eccentricities (all female bodyguard corps, sleeping in a traditional Bedouin tent both in Libya and abroad, wearing of military uniforms or traditional Arab garb, etc) made him the darling of the international press. His press conferences, some posted to YouTube, make for comedic gold. Colonel Gaddafi may have been nuttier than a fruitcake but being crazy does not necessarily make one an idiot. He wisely leveraged Libya’s significant oil wealth into building up an impressive role on the world stage and improving the lives of his people. These actions would make him far more enemies than friends and bring him to the attention of a superpower not willing to tolerate his antics.

Gulf of Sidra and disco bombing

Libya, as stated earlier, was home to vast oil reserves, the sale of which allowed Libya to provide foreign aid to less fortunate nations in Africa along with entering into a political and military alliance with Egypt. However, Gaddafi’s eccentricity and unpredictable nature, combined with his insistence that Egypt launch a cultural revolution along the lines of the one in Libya, rapidly deteriorated relations between the two. In addition, Gaddafi was virulently anti-western and anti-Israel, winning him no allies in Europe. He provided material and monetary aid to the PLO and militant left-wing terrorist groups around the world, including the Red Army faction in Germany, Action Direct in France, the PIRA in Ireland and most infamously the Black September Organization that perpetrated the Munich Massacre in 1972. These acts soon rendered Libya an international pariah. However, third world nations soon saw Gaddafi as an anti-colonialist crusader and natural ally of theirs.

Gaddafi knew that his antics would sooner or later draw military retaliation from Europe or the United States, so he purchased significant amounts of armaments on the open market, mostly from the Warsaw Pact or the Soviet Union. Some equipment, primarily self-propelled guns, missiles and fighters were purchased from Italy and France. This made Libya a regional power, able to influence events around the North African coast and to a lesser extent in the Mediterranean basin.

Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi had been supporting anti-western terrorism for several years when he declared a “line of death” in the Gulf of Sidra, north of the Libyan coast.  Determined to offer a response, President Reagan ordered a battle force into the area in March 1986.  Libya fired surface to air missiles at American aircraft and three fast missile attack craft towards the fleet.  U.S. Navy aircraft disabled the shore battery, sank two of the patrol craft, and damaged the third. In his 1997 painting, "Moment of Impact, Operation Prairie Fire," artist Morgan Ian Wilbur depicts the end of one of Qaddafi's patrol boats. (Navy Art Collection, Accession No. 97-057-A)

As part of his anti-Western, anti-colonial stance, Gaddafi financed a variety of leftist terrorist groups operating throughout Europe. The Western response to Libyan provocations was primarily limited to UN declarations and freedom of navigation operations by the United States Navy in the Gulf of Sidra, which had been claimed in its entirety by Libya. These freedom of navigation exercises provoked a series of low-level clashes between the two sides throughout the first half of the 1980s with the Libyans coming off second.

An F/A-18A Hornet with the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314 "Black Knights" catches a wire aboard USS Coral Sea (CV-43) off the coast of Libya on March 18, 1986. (Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Knepp/ Wikimedia Commons)

The final straw came with the bombing of a nightclub in West Berlin in the early morning hours of April 5, 1986, that left three dead, including two U.S. Army sergeants, and 229 injured. Combined with the existence of terrorist training camps on Libyan soil, a more robust response was required. American president Ronald Reagan demanded a military retaliation for the death of innocent civilians in the terrorist attacks. The result was Operation El Dorado Canyon. 

At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger briefs the press concerning strikes made against Libyan targets by aircraft from the Coral Sea, Saratoga, and America battle groups on March 25, 1986, weeks before much larger strikes coordinated with U.S. Air Force aircraft took place against multiple Libyan targets during Operation El Dorado Canyon. His hand is gesturing below Gaddafi's so-called "line of death" in the Gulf of Sidra, while the coastline is outlined showing Libya's territorial waters as recognized by the U.S. (Defense Visual Information Archive)

Operation El Dorado Canyon

Gaddafi knew that sooner or later he would be subject to military retaliation from the victims of the terrorist assaults that he had helped finance. Therefore, he embarked on a truly impressive buying spree on the international arms market that gave Libya one of the densest air defense networks on earth. In the skies, some 220 MiG 21, 130 MiG 23 and 125 MiG 25s from the Soviet Union and a further 120 French Mirage F1s provided a potent shield. On land, 108 SA2, 108 SA3, 50 SA8 and 50 SA6 launchers backed by 27 French made Crotale surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) could make life dangerous for any aircraft that got through. A third line of defense was provided by 200 Soviet ZSU23-4 self-propelled radar-guided anti-aircraft (SPAAG) weapon systems. Needless to say, the effort required to breach these defenses would need to be on an equally massive scale.

President Ronald Reagan meets with bipartisan members of the U.S. Congress to discuss the air strike on Libya, Operation El Dorado Canyon, in Room 208 of the Old Executive office building on April 14, 1986. (University of Texas via Wikimedia Commons)

President Reagan targeted several locations, mostly in Benghazi, for the retaliatory air strikes, codenamed Operation El Dorado Canyon. The intent was to send a message that Libyan support of terrorism would not be tolerated. A total of 18 F-111 attack bombers flying from bases in the United Kingdom would strike Bab al Aziza barracks, Murat Sidi Bilal camp and Tripoli airfield.

A U.S. Navy Grumman F-14A Tomcat aircraft from fighter squadron VF-33 Starfighters, left, and a Grumman KA-6D Intruder aircraft from attack squadron VA-34 Blue Blasters prepare to take off the aircraft carrier USS America (CV 66) during flight operations off the coast of Libya on April 17, 1986. A Grumman EA-6B Prowler from Marine tactical electronic warfare squadron VMAQ-2 Det.Y Playboys is visible in the background. The aircraft were assigned to Carrier Air Wing 1 (CVW 1) aboard America for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea from 10 March to 15 September 1986. On April 15, 1986, America´s aircraft participated in Operation El Dorado Canyon.
(Photographer's Mate Airman David Casper/ U.S. Defense Imagery, VIRIN DN-ST-86-10023 via Wikimedia Commons)

A further 15 A-6E Intruders from the aircraft carriers USS America (CV 66) and USS Coral Sea (CV 43) would strike Jamahiriya Barracks and Benina Airfield. All locations were related to command and control of the Libyan military machine or were home to defending fighters. The raid was made harder by the fact that many nations, most notably France, denied American overflight of their territory for fear of retaliatory terrorist attacks.

Grumman F-14A Tomcats from fighter squadron VF-33 Starfighters are visible through the steam of the catapults on the aircraft carrier USS America (CV-66) during flight operations off the coast of Libya on April 17, 1986. The aircraft were assigned to Carrier Air Wing 1 (CVW-1) aboard America for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea from March 10 to September 15, 1986. On April 15,1986, America´s aircraft participated in "Operation El Dorado Canyon", the bombing of Libya. (Photographer's Mate Airman David Casper/ U.S. Defense Imagery, VIRIN DN-ST-86-10024 via Wikimedia Commons)

The Americans struck in the early morning hours of April 15, 1986. The entire raid took less than 12 minutes from beginning to end and inflicted heavy damage to all targets. Bab al Aziza was all but leveled by 13 2000-lb bombs while Murat Sidi Bilal was hit by a further 12. Tripoli and Benina airfields absorbed a further 60 and 72 500-lb bombs respectively. Jamahiriya was pulverized by no less than 70 500-lb bombs. 
 
Heavy use of anti-radiation missiles prevented meaningful intervention from the Libyan SAMs while the darkness provided protection from the MiGs and Mirages. A single F-111 was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra by a ZSU23-4 with both crewmen killed on impact. All surviving aircraft arrived back in England or back on board their carriers by 10am Libyan time less a single aircraft that was forced to land in Rota, Spain, the victim of an overheated engine.

A flight deck crewman checks an A-7E Corsair II aircraft from attack squadron VA-72 Blue Hawks aboard the aircraft carrier USS America (CV 66) during flight operations off the coast of Libya on April 17, 1986. The aircraft is armed with an AIM-9L Sidewinder missile on the fuselage station, a Mark 20 Rockeye II bomb on the middle wing pylon and an AGM-45 Shrike missile on the outside wing pylon. VA-72 was assigned to Carrier Air Wing 1 (CVW 1) aboard America for a deployment to the Mediterranean Sea from March 10 to September 15, 1986.  Two days earlier, America´s aircraft participated in Operation El Dorado Canyon. (Photographer's Mate Airman David Casper/ U.S. Defense Imagery, VIRIN DN-ST-86-10022 via Wikimedia Commons)

Aftermath

The attack on Bab al Aziza narrowly missed Colonel Gaddafi and his family who evacuated minutes before the bombs hit. This in turn led to speculation that Gaddafi was deliberately targeted and that Libyan sympathizers within the Italian government had provided advanced warning to the Libyans of the incoming attack.

In his later years, Gaddafi used a monument symbolizing Libyan defiance against the Operation El Dorado Canyon air strikes (and the downing of one of the F-111s conducting the operation) as a backdrop.  During the revolution that toppled him in 2011, the monument was defaced and removed. (Daily Mail)

An estimated 60 Libyans lost their lives in the bombings, including the alleged adopted daughter of Gaddafi. There is considerable debate over whether or not the deceased infant presented to the international press was indeed Hana Gaddafi and even if Colonel Gaddafi had an adopted child at all. Gaddafi retaliated to the attack by firing a pair of SCUD missiles at the American Coast Guard Station on the island of Lampedusa that missed. It is also believed that the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and the hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 were done in retaliation as well. The UN condemned the attack as an unwarranted act of aggression by the United States while the USSR and China described the attack as unprovoked. Survivors of the attacks on both sides received monetary compensation for their losses from a $1.5 billion compensation fund established by Libya in 2008. Hard feelings persist regarding Operation El Dorado Canyon and its aftermath on both sides to this day.

Conclusion

No civilized nation can tolerate the existence of terrorism, be it a small group of fringe extremists or a massive state-sponsored organization. Like the pirate of an earlier age, the terrorist is hostis humani generis: an enemy of the human race. Despite the near universal condemnation by the international community, Operation El Dorado Canyon was a proportional and justified response to a terrorist attack that could not have gone unanswered. Col. Gaddafi managed to successfully rehabilitate his international reputation after the tragic events of 9/11 and was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2006.

U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz stands by the iconic statue of a fist crushing an American warplane, which was long associated with Col. Qadhafi’s Bab AlAzizya compound in Tripoli, but now serves a symbol of the city’s central role in the February 17 Revolution in the center of Tripoli Street in Misurata, Libya, on November 26, 2011. Cretz's successor as ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, was killed by Islamic militants in Benghazi on September 11, 2012.  (U.S. State Department photo)

Tired of the regime’s incipient corruption and the regime’s crackdown on a rising tide of fundamentalist Islamism, the Libyan people rebelled as part of the Arab Spring uprising in April 2011. Forced out of power, he took refuge in a loyalist stronghold in Sirte. Attempting to flee again on October 20, his convoy was attacked by NATO aircraft supporting anti-Gaddafi irregulars in the area, forcing him to seek refuge in a nearby construction site. Anti-Gaddafi militia, following up on the airstrike, captured both Gaddafi and a number of his companions while he was hiding in a culvert drainpipe. Muammar Gaddafi was summarily executed by the militiamen on the spot with footage of the dictator’s violent demise widely broadcast on western media. Unfortunately, Gaddafi’s death did not end the Libyan Civil War, which continues to this day with heavy civilian casualties and an ongoing NATO military intervention. 

Editor's Note: Thomas Grubbs earned a master's degree in military history from Southern New Hampshire University and is currently a park ranger interpreter at Vicksburg National Military Park. His research interest is in the history of the dreadnought battleship.