Page 148 - NS-2 Textbook

THE COLD WAR ERA 141

libya, under its ruler Colonel MUammar Qaddafi, sponsored several terrorist attacks in Europe in the mid-1980s, and provoked incidents with
the U.S. Sixth fleet, ultimately resulting in a retaliatory attack on Libyan terrorist bases in Apri11986,

ghazi and an airfield at Benina. Qaddafi hllnself nar- as pawns in the power struggles of many of these terror-
rowly missed being killed during the course of these ists. Death threats, threats of future hostage taking, and
raids, in which only two U.S. Air Force F-ll1 crewmen threats to reduce or cut off oil exports to offending na-
were lost. The attack had a dramatic effect on reducing tions have been routinely made to cctroter any sugges-
Libyan-sponsored terrorism throughout the world. tion of reprisal attacks against the terrorists' sponsor
Unfortunately, it has often proven difficult to take countries.
much effective action against acts of terror, especially in This situation prompted what came to be known in
the Middle East. Perpetrators from these countries are the United States as the lrall-Contra affair in the mid-
often elusive, and they operate from ever-changing bases 1980s. In this incident a series of illegal arrangements
of operation, so it is hard to target effective reprisals di- was secretly made by several naval and other govern-
rectly against them. Many times in the 1980s and since ment officials that had the effect of supplying arms to
Americans and other Western hostages have been used Iran in exchange for help in obtaining the release of