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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]
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 ...
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 ...
Paul F. Lorence (February 17, 1955 – April 15, 1986) was a captain in the United States Air Force (USAF). A weapon systems officer (WSO), he was killed when his General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark fighter-bomber, tail number 389 and callsign Karma 52, was shot down in action off the coast of Libya on April 15, 1986 during Operation El Dorado Canyon.
On 23 March 1986, operating with Ticonderoga and Scott, Caron moved south of the Libya–claimed "Line of Death". Libya reacted with two days of low intensity conflict in which Caron did not fire any weapons. On 12 February 1988 Caron was lightly rammed by Soviet Mirka II class light frigate (FFL 824) in the Black Sea. [2]
Lion of the Desert (alternative titles: Omar Mukhtar and Omar Mukhtar: Lion of the Desert) is a 1981 epic historical war film about the Second Italo-Senussi War, starring Anthony Quinn as Libyan tribal leader Omar Mukhtar, a Bedouin leader fighting the Regio Esercito (Royal Italian Army), and Oliver Reed as Italian General Rodolfo Graziani, who defeated Mukhtar.