‘Gulf of blood’ warning to U.S.

Press, 19 February 1983, Page 1

‘Gulf of blood’ warning to U.S.

NZPA New York The Libyan leader. Muammar Gadaffi, vowed yesterday to turn the Gulf of Sidra into a “red gulf of blood” if the United States aircraft carrier Nimitz and her battle group dared to re-enter the disputed bay in the southern Mediterranean. "Entering Sidra means an invasion of Libya. The Libyan people want to live as free people and won’t accept foreign occupation. The Gulf of Sidra will turn into a red gulf of blood if anyone tries to sail through it by force,” Mr Gadaffi told his Parliament in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

In August. 1981, United States Navy planes shot down two Libyan fighters challenging them over the disputed Gulf of Sidra, which Libya claims as its territory. The United States President, Mr Reagan, personally ordered four radar surveillance planes to Egypt after United States and Egyptian officials- agreed there was value in "demonstrating our readiness at this time," a senior Administration official said in Washington yesterday. Unlike the acknowledgement by Pentagon sources on Thursday, this official sought

to steer reporters away from any suggestion that the dispatch of the reconnaissance planes and the aircraft carrier Nimitz was a direct response to tensions raised by a Libyan move against the Sudan. However, under prolonged questioning, the official, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, noted that "this Administration has always had a concern about Libya's rather adventurous and unpredictable polices.” In this context, he said, "About this particular occasion. the reading of the leaves and the mutually agreed judgment of our

leadership and those of ouffriends in the Middle East was ‘Let’s conduct an exercise.' " President Reagan accused Libya of trying to destabilise its neighbours and confirmed that United States and Egyptian aircraft had begun joint exercise in Egypt. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Cairo denied that the two air forces were engaged in joint manoeuvres but said that Egyptian pilots were training in the use of electronic equipment in United States reconnaissance aircraft.

The Chief of Staff. General Abd Rabel Nabi Hafez, said that the two countries had a defence pact under which their armed forces were ready at any time "to defend our border as well as those of Sudan." General Hafez would not confirm reports of a Libyan concentration of forces on either border. Chad's President Hissene Habre told a news conference in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, that Libya was massing troops and mercenaries along his country’s northern borders.