Gunning Gaddafi
Created | Updated May 29, 2012
April 5, 1986 La Belle discotheque, West Berlin, Germany, A bomb placed under a table near the DJ booth explodes at the club, killing a Turkish woman and two U.S. sergeants and injuring 230 people, including more than 50 American servicemen. The club was said to be frequented by American Soldiers. Two weeks before the La Belle discotheque blast, Gaddafi called for Arab assaults on American interests worldwide after a U.S.-Libyan naval clash in the Mediterranean, in which 35 seamen on a Libyan patrol boat in the Gulf of Sidra were killed in international waters claimed by Libya.
The then U.S. President Ronald Reagan retaliated by ordering airstrikes against the Libyan capital of Tripoli and city of Benghazi, Operation El Dorado Canyon began. 100 people died in the U.S. airstrikes on Libya, including a child described as leader Colonel Gaddafi's adopted 15-month old daughter, and more than 2000 were injured.
December 21st, 1988 a Pan Am flight from London’s Heathrow Airport to New York’s J.F.Kennedy International Airport explodes midair. The Boeing named ‘Maid of the Seas’ is destroyed with all 243 onboard passengers and 16 of its crew killed. Media names the event ‘Lockerbie bombing’. February 24th 2011, resigned Libyan Justice Minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil reveals that Muamar Gaddafi personally ordered the Lockerbie bombing.
September 19th, 1989 a Mc Donnell Douglas DC 10 aircraft at an altitude of 10,700 metres (35,100 ft) explodes. Its remains fall apart on the Sahara desert near the towns of Bilma and Tenere in Niger. The motive is later discovered to a revenge against the French for supporting Chad (is a landlocked country in central Africa) against the expansionist policies of Libya towards Chad. The French advances were taken to by Libya as ‘Neo-colonialist’. Which later turned out a disaster for Libya and Gaddafi was forced to call for ceasefire bringing an end to his aspirations of Afro-Arab dominance.
Muammar al-Gaddafi’s autocratic rule since his becoming a de-facto leader of Libya on September 1, 1969 against King Idris is a tale of aggressive and unfortunate turmoil against the natives of Libya. The new Revolutionary Command Council led by him abolished monarchy & the constitution and proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic as ‘Jaahiriya’ in 1977. A self proclaimed leader of the country, Gaddafi led a series of military campaigns in North Africa (Chad) resulting in estimated 10,000 deaths. The failure is rumored to his divide and rule policies in his command structure to counter a coup that might have weakened his position in the Libyan Armed Forces. Libya maintained cordial relations with the Soviet Bloc in 1970’s and was actively involved in funding international terrorism between the 1970’s and 1980’s. Post Libyan bombing by the Regan Administration and a number of sanctions imposed, Gaddafi changed his stance with reference to his foreign relations.
The West turned genial because of its interest in petroleum trade of which Libya accounted to 95% of its exports. A number of coups and assassination attempts occurred during the intervening period, however the 2011 uprising in Libya is presumed to propose one of its most serious threats to Gaddafi. The situation has ripened into disguised Civil war behind which many innocent may lose their lives. The world community has responded through United Nations but how much of it is to salvage the innocent and how much of it for the Oil under the sand needs to be anticipated with equal concern. May the human life and its peaceful co-existence prevail.
