1986 United States bombing of Libya

• 1. Introduction

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  The 1986 United States bombing of Libya began at 02:00 on the 15th of April, when sixty tons of munitions rained down on targets across Tripoli and Benghazi in a raid that lasted roughly twelve minutes. The official name was Operation El Dorado Canyon. The planes were already wheels-down and returning to their carriers before most of the world had processed what had happened.

  Why did the United States strike a sovereign country in the middle of the night? Who gave the order, and who paid the price? The answers run through a discotheque in West Berlin, a contested stretch of the Mediterranean, a secret aircraft that almost flew that night but did not, and a diplomatic rupture with France that forced bombers on an extra 2,800 kilometers of flying just to reach their targets.

• 2. Years of Tension

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  Ronald Reagan made Libya a priority almost from the moment of his 1981 inauguration. Muammar Gaddafi alarmed Washington on several fronts at once: his firm anti-Israel stance, his backing of armed factions in the Palestinian territories and Syria, and his occupation of Chad, a country rich in uranium at a time when Libya was suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons.

  Alexander Haig, then U.S. Secretary of State, pushed for proactive measures because Gaddafi had recruited former CIA operatives, most notably Edwin P. Wilson and Frank E. Terpil, to help build terrorist training camps. After the December 1985 attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna, which killed nineteen people and wounded approximately 140, Gaddafi signaled openly that he would keep supporting the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army.

  In March 1986, the United States sent a carrier task force into the Gulf of Sidra, asserting the 12 nautical mile limit to territorial waters under international law. Libya responded aggressively on the 24th of March, triggering a naval engagement. The two countries were already on a collision course when, on the 5th of April 1986, Libyan agents bombed the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people including two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, and injuring 229, of whom 79 were Americans. West Germany and the United States obtained cable transcripts from Libyan agents in East Germany who had directed the attack, giving Reagan specific grounds to act.

• 3. Secret Rehearsals

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  Months before La Belle, the U.S. military had already been preparing for exactly this kind of long-range strike. In October 1985, the 20th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF Upper Heyford received a top-secret order to launch a simulated attack mission designated Operation Ghost Rider. On the 18th of October, ten F-111E Aardvarks armed with 500-pound practice bombs flew a simulated strike against an airfield in Labrador, Canada, standing in for a Libyan target. All but one of the aircraft performed as planned.

  Separately, in August 1985, six specially trained B-52H crews of the 23rd Bombardment Squadron in Minot, North Dakota, were designated the Advanced Conventional Taskforce. They practiced low-level conventional bombing, including the first ever use of Night Vision Goggles by B-52 crews. Over six months of intensive training, the unit dropped more live ordnance on Nevada and Utah test ranges than had been expended since the end of the Vietnam War.

  A third and far more secret option was also on the table. Over thirty F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft had already been delivered to Tactical Air Command and were operating from Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada. European Command senior officers did not know the F-117 existed. Within an hour of the planned launch, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger scrubbed the stealth mission, fearing that using the aircraft would compromise its existence. The F-117 would not become publicly known until 1988, and it appeared prominently in coverage of Operation Desert Storm. The raid proceeded with conventional Navy and Air Force aircraft.

• 4. The Route Around France

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  France, Spain, and Italy all refused to allow U.S. Air Forces in Europe to use their continental bases or fly over their territory. French President Francois Mitterrand declined in part because the United States sought only a limited punitive strike, while France wanted action that would remove Gaddafi from power entirely. Another factor was the U.S. failure to participate in a retaliatory air raid on Iranian positions after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings.

  The consequence was stark: the Air Force portion of the mission had to fly west around France and Spain, over Portugal, and through the Straits of Gibraltar, adding 1,300 miles each way and requiring multiple aerial refuelings. The French refusal alone added 2,800 kilometers to the journey.

  Twenty-eight McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extenders and Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers took off from RAF Mildenhall and RAF Fairford shortly after 19:00 on the 14th of April to conduct four silent refueling operations across the 6,000-mile round-trip route. Within minutes, twenty-four F-111F strike aircraft of the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing followed from RAF Lakenheath, accompanied by five EF-111A Ravens from RAF Upper Heyford. Six F-111s and one EF-111 were designated spares. One F-111F suffered an engine flameout on takeoff and returned to base. Meanwhile, carrier America was already on station in the Gulf of Sidra; carrier Coral Sea made a high-speed run from Naples through the Strait of Messina to reach its position.

• 5. Twelve Minutes Over Libya

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  Coordinated electronic jamming began at 01:54 Libyan time as A-7E Corsairs and F/A-18 Hornets began launching AGM-88 HARM and AGM-45 Shrike missiles to suppress Libyan air defenses. The attack itself began at 02:00 and was over in approximately twelve minutes.

  The results were uneven. Of nine F-111s targeting Bab al-Azizia barracks, Gaddafi's command and control center in Tripoli, only three placed their GBU-10 Paveway II laser-guided bombs on target. Rules of engagement required positive target identification by both radar and Pave Tack before bomb release. One F-111 was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra; another's bombs missed the barracks entirely, striking diplomatic and civilian sites and narrowly missing the French embassy. All three F-111s assigned to Sidi Bilal, a naval commando training camp, released their bombs on target. Five of six F-111s tasked with the former Wheelus Air Base airfield at Tripoli completed their runs, destroying two Il-76 transport aircraft with BSU-49 high-drag bombs.

  At sea, carrier America's A-6E Intruders damaged the Jamahiriyah Guard barracks in Benghazi and destroyed four MiG shipping crates. Five A-6s from Coral Sea struck Benina airfield with CBU-59 cluster bombs and Mk 82 bombs, destroying three or four MiGs, two Mil Mi-8 helicopters, a Fokker F27 Friendship transport, and a small fixed-wing aircraft. A Boeing 727 was also reportedly destroyed at Benina.

  Libyan anti-aircraft fire did not begin until after the planes had already passed over their targets. No Libyan fighters launched. HARM missiles and jamming suppressed every surface-to-air missile system in the defensive network, though one SA-6 tracked an A-6 from VA-34 before the aircraft evaded. By 02:53 Libyan time, Navy aircraft had recovered aboard their carriers. USAF planes, with one exception that landed at Naval Station Rota in Spain with an overheated engine, were back in Britain by 10:10 Libyan time.

• 6. Casualties and the Pilots of Karma-52

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  Two U.S. Air Force captains, Fernando L. Ribas-Dominicci and Paul F. Lorence, were killed when their F-111, flying under the callsign Karma-52, was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra, possibly by a Libyan S-200 missile. In the hours after the attack, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger suggested the aircraft might have experienced radio trouble or been diverted, declining to confirm the loss. By the next day, the Pentagon announced it had stopped searching for the plane.

  On the 25th of December 1988, Gaddafi offered to return the body of Lorence through Pope John Paul II. The body returned in 1989 was identified through dental records as Ribas-Dominicci's. An autopsy conducted in Spain confirmed he had drowned after the plane went down. Libya denied holding Lorence's remains. Lorence's brother said he and his mother saw television footage of a Libyan man holding a white helmet with the name "Lorence" stenciled on the back. William C. Chasey, who toured the Bab al-Azizia barracks, said he saw two flight suits and helmets bearing both names, along with wreckage he identified as their F-111.

  On the Libyan side, total casualties were estimated at 60, including those at the bombed airbases. Gaddafi and his family escaped the Bab al-Azizia compound moments before the bombs fell, having received a telephone call from Malta's Prime Minister, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici. Bonnici had been alerted by Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, whose country had detected unidentified aircraft off the west coast of Sicily and scrambled F-104 Starfighters to intercept them, discovering the approaching strike force before being waved off by pilots speaking with obvious American accents. Among the Libyan casualties was an infant girl whose body was shown to American reporters; she was identified as Gaddafi's recently adopted daughter Hana, though the claim was disputed and remains unresolved.

• 7. Aftermath and Retaliation

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  Gaddafi declared the raid a Libyan military victory. He officially renamed the country the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah" and publicly described Reagan as "mad," "foolish," and "an Israeli dog." He said reconciliation was impossible while Reagan remained in the White House.

  Libya's immediate military response was to fire two Scud missiles at a U.S. Coast Guard station on the Italian island of Lampedusa; both fell short into the sea. The longer pattern of retaliation was more lethal. In Beirut, the Libyan-supported Abu Nidal Organization shot dead two British hostages, Leigh Douglas and Philip Padfield, along with an American, Peter Kilburn. British hostage Alec Collett was hanged; footage of his death was released, and his body was not found until November 2009. Journalist John McCarthy was kidnapped; tourist Paul Appleby was killed in Jerusalem.

  In October 1986, Gaddafi financed the Al-Rukn faction in Chicago, led by Jeff Fort, to carry out attacks on U.S. soil including bombing government buildings and downing an aircraft. Al-Rukn members were convicted in 1987 of offering to commit bombings and assassinations for Libyan payment. In late 1987, French authorities intercepted the cargo vessel MV Eksund attempting to deliver 150 tons of Soviet arms from Libya to the Irish Republican Army.

  The most devastating act linked to Libya in this period came on the 21st of December 1988, when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 people on the ground. In 1991 two Libyans were charged. One, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, was convicted on the 31st of January 2001 in what remained a controversial judgment. The Libyan government accepted responsibility on the 29th of May 2002 and offered $2.7 billion to compensate families of the 270 victims. Al-Megrahi, suffering from terminal prostate cancer, was released by the Scottish Government in August 2009 on compassionate grounds and died in 2012.

• 8. Claims, Compensation, and Legacy

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  The international condemnation was immediate. The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 41/38 by a vote of 79 to 28, with 33 abstentions, declaring the attack a violation of the UN Charter and international law. The Soviet Union issued a formal denunciation but explicitly announced it would not provide Libya with additional military support beyond basic resupply. Moscow cancelled a planned visit to Washington by Foreign Affairs Minister Eduard Shevardnadze but signaled clearly that it did not want the episode to derail the upcoming U.S.-Soviet summit or ongoing arms control negotiations.

  British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's approval of American use of Royal Air Force bases generated sharp domestic criticism, including an unprecedented report in The Sunday Times suggesting that the Queen was troubled by her Prime Minister's conduct. The U.S. reciprocated with strong public support for Thatcher, and the Special Relationship between the two countries was reinforced.

  On the 28th of May 2008, the United States and Libya opened negotiations on a comprehensive claims settlement. On the 14th of August 2008, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch and Libyan Secretary for American Affairs Ahmad Fituri signed the U.S.-Libya Comprehensive Claims Settlement Agreement in Tripoli. In October 2008, Libya paid $1.5 billion into a compensation fund, distributed in three installments of $300 million, $600 million, and $600 million, covering Lockerbie victims, American victims of the 1986 West Berlin bombing, American victims of the 1989 UTA Flight 772 bombing, and Libyan victims of the 1986 strikes. To fund the settlement, Libya extracted $1.5 billion from global oil companies operating in its fields under threat to their leases. On the 4th of August 2008, President George W. Bush signed the Libyan Claims Resolution Act, which Congress had passed unanimously on the 31st of July. Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were formally restored.