Facts For Your Files

Washington Report, April 21, 1986, Page 8

Facts For Your Files: A Chronology of U.S. Middle East Relations

March 13:

Israel's Herut Party, the core of the right wing Likud bloc, ended a four day political convention deeply split by a brutal fight over party leadership which pitted Trade Minister Ariel Sharon and Deputy Prime Minister David Levy against Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Minister Without Portfolio Moshe Arens. According to some observers, the split reflected the growing friction within Herut between the party's "old leadership" mainly Jews of European origin and more recent members from Arab countries.

March 23:

U.S. F 14 fighter bombers entered the Gulf of Sidra near Libya as part of routine naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean, despite warnings from Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi that the action would be a "declaration of way" between Libya and the U.S. The U.S. charged that Libyans fired several Soviet built surface to air missiles at the planes, missing their targets each time. The U.S. retaliated by destroying two Libyan patrol boats and firing rockets into a radar installation in the Libyan port of Sirt.

March 25:

Denouncing the U.S. action in the Gulf of Sidra as an example of U.S. "arrogance and haughtiness," Libyan radio announced that "suicide squads" would retaliate against U.S. interests abroad and called for the assassination of American "experts and consultants" throughout the Arab world.

March 31:

The Reagan Administration confirmed an earlier report in the influential Egyptian daily Al Ahram that Egypt had turned down three U.S. offers in the last eight months to launch a joint military operation against Libya. Al Ahram had reported that the Egyptian refusal stemmed from reluctance to "raise arms" against another Arab country.

April 1:

Vice President George Bush said the agenda for his upcoming trip to the Middle East would include delivering to the Saudis a message from President Reagan that low oil prices were hurting American producers. Bush also said oil prices should not be allowed to fall "like a man without a parachute."

April 2:

Four American citizens were killed when a bomb exploded aboard a TWA jet airliner en route from Rome to Athens. The Arab Revolutionary Cells, an underground Palestinian group reputedly linked to Abu Nidal, claimed responsibility for the attack. May Elias Mansour, a Lebanese woman who had been on board the flight earlier in the day and who was named by Italian police as a suspect, denied charges that she had planted the bomb.

April 3:

PLO Chairman Yassir Arafat confirmed that Jordan had closed the PLO's office in Amman and accused Jordan's King Hussein of "going too far" in ending the joint Jordanian PLO peace initiative. Kuwait's Al Anbaa reported that Egypt and Algeria had unsuccessfully tried to mend differences between Arafat and Hussein after the King broke off negotiations with the PLO leader last February.

April 5:

A bomb exploded in a West Berlin discotheque popular with U.S. servicemen, killing an American soldier and a Turkish woman, and wounding more than 200 others. Ambassador Robert Oakley, head of the State Department's counter terrorism office, later said the bombing fit "the pattern of Qaddafi like inspired terrorism."

April 6:

In an address at the annual convention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), CIA Director William Casey said the Middle East "Marshall Plan" proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Peres was necessary to combat the "present danger" of Arab nationalism aimed at "moderate" Arab regimes. Peres had encouraged the U.S., Western Europe and Japan to launch a $28 billion economic plan similar to the one which rebuilt Western Europe after World War II to aid Middle Eastern countries suffering from the collapse of world oil prices.

April 8:

In a nationally televised news conference, President Reagan denounced Colonel Qaddafi as the "mad dog of the Middle East" and said the U.S. was ready to launch a military strike against Libya if it had enough evidence to prove he had sponsored attacks aimed at Americans. Administration officials said the President had decided to retain two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean to keep open the option of threatening an attack or actually carrying one out.

April 9:

Israel's 19 month coalition government appeared near collapse, with Prime Minister Peres vowing to carry out his threat to dismiss Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai, a Likud member who Peres said had repeatedly insulted him. Foreign Minister Shamir labelled the action a "trick" by Peres to escape from the provisions of a Labor Likud agreement under which Shamir would "rotate" into the prime ministership next October.

April 14:

President Reagan announced in a Washington, D.C. evening news conference that some 100 U.S. Air Force and Naval aircraft had struck five Libyan military targets in early morning (2 a.m. April 15, Libyan time) raids. In a follow up news conference by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz, the latter, long considered the driving force within the Administration on behalf of military rather than political responses to attacks on U.S. citizens, said that the U.S. had information about planned attacks on 30 U.S. installations. The Administration had earlier released texts of messages it said were passed between Libya and its diplomats in East Berlin concerning the attack on a West Berlin cabaret in which a U.S. soldier and a Turkish civilian were killed and scores of others injured.

April 15:

Widespread civilian casualties were reported in Libya in the wake of U.S. air attacks, including the death of Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi's 15 month old adopted daughter, and severe injuries to two of his young sons. Western correspondents counted seven bomb craters in the immediate vicinity of Qaddafi's family's residence, the tent where he receives visitors, and his underground headquarters. Also damaged in Tripoli were the French Embassy and the residence of the Japanese Ambassador.

April 15:

The U.S. reported its ships and aircraft could find no trace of an Air Force F 111 aircraft which apparently was downed near Tripoli, with loss of the pilot, Capt. Fernando L. Ribas Dominieci, 33, and the navigator, Capt. Paul F. Lorence, 31.

April 15:

Italian authorities reported two missiles, apparently fired from Libya, exploded harmlessly near a U.S. Coast Guard installation on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

April 15:

The USSR announced the indefinite postponent of planned pre summit meetings between U.S. and Soviet officials. Demonstrations protesting the U.S. strike on Libya erupted in major European cities. Governments of three countries, Israel, Canada and the U.K., announced support for the U.S. action. A BBC poll, however, indicated 60 percent of Britons polled opposed the action.

April 17:

Libyan Leader Muammar Qaddafi appeared on Libyan television, ending U.S. speculation that he had been killed or injured in the U.S. attack or subsequent shooting, and told his countrymen to turn the lights back on in blacked out Tripoli. An American employee of the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum was evacuated to Saudi Arabia for surgery after being shot in the head by unknown assailants as he drove home for work. Demonstrators in Tunisia, Pakistan and other Muslim nations threatened U.S. Embassies, U.S.I.S. libraries, and American business establishments.