Khaddafi shot? read here:Global Intelligence Update
Red Alert
June 12, 1998
Libya's Moammar Khaddafi Allegedly Shot by Rebels
A scheduled visit to Egypt by Libyan leader Moammar Khaddafi was suddenly
and unexpectedly postponed by the Libyan side on June 2, the day Khaddafi
was supposed to arrive in the Egyptian border town of Marsa Matruh. After
a string of different explanations and additional postponements by the
Libyans during the first week in June, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
announced that Khaddafi's visit would be postponed for 10 to 15 days, since
the Libyan leader was suffering from tonsilitis. However a strange story
surfaced on Thursday, June 11, claiming that Khaddafi was suffering, not
from tonsilitis, but from a gunshot wound, the result of an attack by
Muslim insurgents.
The facts surrounding the alleged attack vary by reporter, but all make the
same basic claim citing the same source. According to Libyan travelers
arriving in the Egyptian border town of Salum, Khaddafi was attacked during
his journey to Egypt on either June 1 or 2, when he stopped his car near
the town of Dirnah on a coastal road in eastern Libya. The Libyan
travelers, some of whom claim to have witnessed the attack, said Muslim
militants opened fire on Khaddafi and his guards from the surrounding
mountains. Casualty claims vary, with most reports stating that Khaddafi
was shot in the elbow; his top bodyguard Aisha was killed when she shielded
the Libyan leader; and seven other bodyguards were seriously wounded.
Italian television on June 11 reported that 16 of Khaddafi's bodyguards
were killed in the attack, in addition to the seven who were injured.
Dirnah, in eastern Libya's mountainous al-Jabal al-Akhdar region, is home
to numerous hideouts of Libya's Muslim insurgency, and has seen frequent
clashes between the rebels and government security forces. According to
the Libyan travelers, police have set up checkpoints along the road from
Benghazi to the Egyptian border and have arrested up to 100 men in the
towns of Dirnah, Ras al-Helal, and al-Qubbah. We note that somehow the
alleged witnesses managed to avoid these checkpoints.
The alleged incident could not be independently confirmed, and diplomats in
Libya reportedly said they had heard nothing of the attack, although one
European diplomat did confirm that Khaddafi was in eastern Libya last week.
Libyan opposition members in Egypt denied the report, however the London-
based human rights group Liberty for the Muslim World reported that
Khaddafi had been attacked "in the past few days."
Libyan travelers are a frequent source of unconfirmed reports of unrest,
coup plots, and assassination attempts in Libya, and this report could be
fiction. Also, Libyan opposition forces charge that Khaddafi has made
extensive use of disinformation in an attempt to manipulate the situation
in eastern Libya. Nevertheless, the timing, details, and location of the
alleged attack sound plausible, and suspicion is raised by the sudden
cancellation of Khaddafi's trip and the confused and contradictory
explanations offered for the delay. Khaddafi also chose not to attend a
meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Burkina Faso this week,
claiming not to want to "embarrass" the country by violating the U.N. ban
on air travel in flying to the meeting.
We would not be surprised if this report was true, except for the fact that
only a lunatic would stop his car at the foot of mountains which are
riddled with caves occupied by rebels fighting to topple his regime.
Whether true or merely disinformation sown by Tripoli, we can expect
Khaddafi to use the alleged incident as justification for sweeping attacks
against the insurgents.
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