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At the same time, Libya began the installation of SA-5 Gammon surface-to-air missile batteries and radars they received from the Soviet Union in late 1985, to bolster their air defense. As the United States Navy had done for several years, they challenged Libya's claim to the Gulf of Sidra by crossing the so-called "Line of Death".
In the first Gulf of Sidra incident, 19 August 1981, two Libyan Su-22 Fitters fired upon two U.S. F-14 Tomcats and were subsequently shot down off the Libyan coast. Libya had claimed that the entire Gulf was their territory, at 32° 30′ N, with an exclusive 62-nautical-mile (115 km; 71 mi) fishing zone, which Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi asserted as "The Line of Death" in 1973. [1]
Libya responded with aggressive counter-maneuvers on 24 March that led to a naval engagement in the Gulf of Sidra. On 5 April 1986, alleged Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people, including two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, [12] [13] and injuring 229 people, including 79 Americans. [14]
15 April - U.S. aircraft bombs airfields and barracks within Libya. [1] After the bombing the country was renamed Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. Gaddafi announces plans for a unified African gold dinar currency, to challenge the dominance of the US Dollar and Euro currencies. The African dinar would have been measured directly ...
The United States did not recognize Libya's territorial claims and continued to challenge the line, leading to military hostilities in August 1981 and March 1986. A terrorist attack in Germany which killed two American soldiers and one Turkish civilian on 5 April 1986 was linked to Libya and prompted the U.S. to carry out retaliatory air ...
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The day after the initial crossing of the line of death by aircraft launched from the carriers, a Libyan patrol boat operating on our side of the gulf was interferring with U.S. aircraft, preventing them from completing their mission, by locking onto the aircraft with fire control radar, presumably from a surface-to-air missle system installed ...
Isis and other extremist groups exploited the chaos that engulfed Libya after the 2011 uprising that toppled and later killed long-time ruler Muammar Gaddafi. They seized the coastal city of Sirte ...