Why us bombed libya

Libya has long been on a common if often deadly route from the Middle East and Africa to Europe. Nearly people have died in the Mediterranean Sea attempting to cross to Europe this year alone. Nouradine Greetly, who heads the detention center. Aid workers say detainees have the option to return to their home countries or apply for asylum in Libya, but many remain in detention centers, determined to continue their journey to Europe. Search Search. Home United States U. Africa 54 - November 11, VOA Africa Listen live.

VOA Newscasts Latest program. VOA Newscasts. Previous Next. July 03, PM. Heather Murdock. Although it does not include the use of ground troops beyond small special forces squads rotating in and out of Libya and drones collecting intelligence, the air campaign opens a new front in the war against IS and what American officials consider its most dangerous component outside Syria and Iraq. Obama authorized the strikes after a recommendation by U.

Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. Washington took part in air strikes in to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya which helped topple Gaddafi. The White House said U. But that coordination will be a challenge, experts said. Local forces in Libya fighting Islamic State are diffuse and fragmented, with no single center of command, said Frederic Wehrey, a Libya expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington who recently spent three days with fighters in Sirte.

Brigades mainly composed of militia from the western city of Misrata advanced on Sirte in May, but their progress was slowed by snipers, mines and booby-traps. Those forces have complained that assistance from the government in Tripoli and external powers was slow to materialize. All targets except one were reportedly chosen because of their direct connection to terrorist activity. The Benina military airfield was hit to preempt Libyan interceptors from taking off and attacking the incoming U.

Even before the operation had ended, President Reagan went on national television to discuss the air strikes. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again. Operation El Dorado Canyon, as it was code-named, was called a success by U. Although he never admitted it publicly, there is speculation that Qaddafi was also wounded in the bombing. Fire from Libyan surface-to-air missiles and conventional anti-aircraft artillery was heavy during the attack, and one F, along with its two-member crew, were lost in unknown circumstances.

Several residential buildings were inadvertently bombed during the raid, and 15 Libyan civilians were reported killed. The French embassy in Tripoli was also accidentally hit, but no one was injured. On April 15, Libyan patrol boats fired missiles at a U. Navy communications station on the Italian island of Lamedusa, but the missiles fell short.

There was no other major terrorist attack linked to Libya until the bombing of Pan Am over Lockerbie, Scotland. All passengers and crew of that flight were killed, and 11 people on the ground perished. In the early s, investigators identified Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah as suspects in the bombing, but Libya refused to turn them over to be tried in the United States.

But in —in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against Libya—Colonel Moammar Gadhafi agreed to turn the suspects over to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early , al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, although he continues to profess his innocence and work to overturn his conviction. Fhimah was acquitted. In accordance with United Nations and American demands, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, though it did not express remorse.

The U. He also admitted that Libya had not really accepted guilt for the bombing. Qaddafi surprised many around the world when he became one of the first Muslim heads of state to denounce al-Qaida after the attacks of September 11, In , he gained favor with the administration of George W. Bush when he announced the existence of a program to build weapons of mass destruction in Libya and that he would allow an international agency to inspect and dismantle them.

Though some in the U.