Gadaffi 'will train’ terrorists

Press, 17 January 1986, Page 6

Gadaffi 'will train’ terrorists

NZPA-Reuter Tripoli The Libyan leader, Muammar Gadaffi, yesterday offered to train Arab soldiers in “terrorism and suicide missions” and to make Libya a base for liberating Palestine.

In a two-hour speech to thousands of young Libyans, Mr Gadaffi said that he was ready to accept members of pro-Libyan Arab groups in Libya for such training.

“I accept all their decisions and declare that we shall train them on terrorist and suicide missions and allocate trainers for them

and place all the necessary weapons needed for such missions at their disposal... (I) offer them my personal protection because Libya is a base for the liberation of Palestine,” Mr Gadaffi told a cheering crowd.

He also said that Libya would accept volunteers from among Arab soldiers and invited young men and women to join the Libyan Armed Forces, offering all Arabs on Libyan soil Libyan citizenship.

Mr Gadaffi’s speech came after the imposition of

United States economic sanctions on Libya after last month’s attacks by Palestinian guerrillas on the Rome and Vienna airports. In Washington, the Secretary of State, George Shultz, said that the United States had a clear legal right to use force against States backing terrorists, declaring that American policy had to be to fight back. “We are right to be reluctant to unsheath our sword,” Mr Shultz said on Wednesday. “But we cannot let the ambiguities of the terrorist threat reduce us to total

impotence.” Mr Shultz’s stand has appeared to be in conflict with that of the Defence Secretary, Caspar Weinberger, who has listed strict conditions for the use of military force, including the need for a strong national consensus. Mr Shultz did not mentioii the United States economic boycott of Libya but scoffed at what he said were assertions that a military.; response to the airport at-' tacks would break inter-: national law or lower the United States to the level of the terrorists.