Gaddafi and international terrorism
See also: Active measures

In 1971 Gaddafi warned that if France opposes Libyan military occupation of Chad, he will use all weapons in the war against France including the "revolutionary weapon".[44] On 11 June 1972, Gaddafi announced that any Arab wishing to volunteer for Palestinian terrorist groups "can register his name at any Libyan embassy will be given adequate training for combat". He also promised financial support for attacks.[45] On 7 October 1972, Gaddafi praised the Lod Airport massacre, executed by the communist Japanese Red Army, and demanded Palestinian terrorist groups to carry out similar attacks.[45]

Reportedly, Gaddafi was a major financier of the "Black September Movement" which perpetrated the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. In 1973 the Irish Naval Service intercepted the vessel Claudia in Irish territorial waters, which carried Soviet arms from Libya to the Provisional IRA.[46][47] In 1976 after a series of terror activities by the Provisional IRA, Gaddafi announced that "the bombs which are convulsing Britain and breaking its spirit are the bombs of Libyan people. We have sent them to the Irish revolutionaries so that the British will pay the price for their past deeds".[45]

In the Philippines, Libya has backed the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which continues to terrorize and murder people in the name of establishing a separatist Islamic state in the southern Philippines.[48] Libya has also supported the New People's Army[49] and Libyan agents were seen meeting with the Communist Party of the Philippines.[50] Islamist terrorist group Abu Sayyaf has also been suspected of receiving Libyan funding.[51]

In 2002, he paid a ransom reportedly worth tens of millions of dollars to Abu Sayyaf to release a number of kidnapped tourists. He presented it as an act of goodwill to Western countries; nevertheless the money helped the terrorist group to expand its operation.[23]

Gaddafi also became a strong supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, which support ultimately harmed Libya's relations with Egypt, when in 1979 Egypt pursued a peace agreement with Israel. As Libya's relations with Egypt worsened, Gaddafi sought closer relations with the Soviet Union. Libya became the first country outside the Soviet bloc to receive the supersonic MiG-25 combat fighters, but Soviet-Libyan relations remained relatively distant. Gaddafi also sought to increase Libyan influence, especially in states with an Islamic population, by calling for the creation of a Saharan Islamic state and supporting anti-government forces in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the 1970s and the 1980s, this support was sometimes so freely given that even the most unsympathetic groups could obtain Libyan support; often the groups represented ideologies far removed from Gaddafi's own. Gaddafi's approach often tended to confuse international opinion.

In 1981 Gaddafi was found talking about assassinating new American president Ronald Reagan. In October 1981 Egypt's President Anwar Sadat was assassinated. Gaddafi applauded the murder and remarked that it was a punishment.[52]

American President Ronald Reagan dubbed Gaddafi the "mad dog of the Middle East". In December 1981, the US State Department invalidated US passports for travel to Libya, and in March 1982, the U.S. declared a ban on the import of Libyan oil.[53]

Gaddafi reportedly spent hundreds of millions of the government's money on training and arming Sandinistas in Nicaragua.[54] Daniel Ortega, the President of Nicaragua, was his ally.

In April 1984, Libyan refugees in London protested against execution of two dissidents. Communications intercepted by MI5 show that Tripoli ordered its diplomats to direct violence against the demonstrators. Libyan diplomats shot at 11 people and killed British policewoman Yvonne Fletcher. The incident led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Libya for over a decade.[55]

After December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded around 140, Gaddafi indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as European countries support anti-Gaddafi Libyans.[56] The Foreign Minister of Libya also called the massacres "heroic acts".[57]

In 1986, Libyan state television announced that Libya was training suicide squads to attack American and European interests.[58]

Gaddafi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as his territorial waters and his navy was involved in a conflict from January to March 1986.

On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people and injuring 229 people who were spending evening there. Gaddafi's plan was intercepted by Western intelligence. More-detailed information was retrieved years later when Stasi archives were investigated by the reunited Germany. Libyan agents who had carried out the operation from the Libyan embassy in East Germany were prosecuted by reunited Germany in the 1990s.[59]

Germany and the U.S. learned that the bombing in West Berlin had been ordered from Tripoli. On 14 April 1986, the U.S. carried out Operation El Dorado Canyon against Gaddafi and members of his government. Air defenses, three army bases, and two airfields in Tripoli and Benghazi were bombed. The surgical strikes failed to kill Gaddafi but he lost a few dozen military officers. Gaddafi then spread propaganda how it had killed his "adopted daughter" and how victims had been all "civilians". Despite the absurdity and variations of the stories, the campaign was so successful that a large proportion of the Western press reported the government's stories as facts.[60]

Gaddafi announced that he had won a spectacular military victory over the U.S. and the country was officially renamed the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyah".[44] However, his speech appeared devoid of passion and even the "victory" celebrations appeared unusual. Criticism of Gaddafi by ordinary Libyan citizens became more bold, such as defacing of Gaddafi posters.[44] The raids against Libyan military had brought the government to its the weakest point in 17 years.[44]

Many Western European countries took action against Libyan terrorism and other activities following years.

In May 1987, Australia broke off relations with Libya because of its role in fueling violence in Oceania.[49][61][62]

In late 1987 French authorities stopped a merchant vessel, the MV Eksund, which was delivering a 150 ton Libyan arms shipment to European terrorist groups.

In Britain, Gaddafi's best-known political political subsidiary is the Workers Revolutionary Party.[62][63]

Gaddafi has also paid for meetings with the British National Party.[64]

In Austria, Jörg Haider reportedly received tens of millions dollars from Gaddafi as well as Saddam Hussein.[65]

Gaddafi fueled a number of Islamist and communist terrorist groups in the Philippines, including the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The country still struggles with their murders and kidnappings.[48][23][49][56][66]

In Indonesia, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka was a Libyan-backed militant group.[49] Vanuatu's ruling party enjoyed Libyan support.[49]

In New Zealand, Libya attempted to radicalize Māoris.[49]

In Australia, there were several cases of attempted radicalisation of Australian Aborigines, with individuals receiving paramilitary training in Libya. Libya put several left-wing unions on the Libyan payroll, such as the Food Preservers Union (FPU) and the Federated Confectioners Association of Australia (FCA). Labour Party politician Bill Hartley, the secretary of Libya-Australia friendship society, was long-term supporter of Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein.[49][61][62]

In the 1980s, the Libyan government purchased advertisements in Arabic-language newspapers in Australia asking for Australian Arabs to join the military units of his worldwide struggle against imperialism. In part,because of this, Australia banned recruitment of foreign mercenaries in Australia.[62]

Gaddafi developed ongoing relationship with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a terrorist group which may produce more than half of world's cocaine, becoming acquainted with its leaders in meetings of revolutionary groups regularly hosted in Libya.[41][42]

Some publications were financed by Gaddafi. The Socialist Labour League's Workers News was one such publication: "in among the routine denunciations of uranium mining and calls for greater trade union militancy would be a couple of pages extolling Gaddafi's fatuous and incoherent green book and the Libyan revolution."[62]

Me sangran los ojos.