Libya

Libya is a country in North Africa bordering the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west. The modern state emerged from Italian colonial rule and British and French wartime occupation. King Idris I established a constitutional monarchy at independence in 1951. On September 1, 1969, a military coup led by 27-year-old Colonel Muammar Gaddafi overthrew the monarchy and established a revolutionary socialist republic.¹

Gaddafi and State Terrorism

Gaddafi's government, which he styled the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya," financed and armed a range of international terrorist and insurgent organizations from the 1970s through the 1990s, including the IRA, the Abu Nidal Organization, and Palestinian factions. Libya expelled American and British military personnel and nationalized foreign oil company assets. The CIA began conducting covert operations against Gaddafi from the early 1980s under the Reagan administration, including funding for internal opposition and efforts to cultivate military officers who might stage a coup.²

In April 1984, a gunman inside the Libyan People's Bureau (embassy) in London fired into a crowd of protesters outside, killing British police constable Yvonne Fletcher. Libya broke diplomatic relations with Britain following the incident. On April 15, 1986, the United States bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in Operation El Dorado Canyon, targeting Gaddafi's personal compound and intelligence facilities, after a Libyan-linked bombing of a Berlin disco killed American soldiers. The operation was launched from British bases with Margaret Thatcher's approval.¹

PROMIS Connection

Angela Dellafiora, the DIA analyst working in the STARGATE PROJECT remote viewing program, reportedly described a Libyan chemical weapons facility in a remote viewing session. More directly, Libya was among the countries to which PROMIS software was allegedly distributed in a backdoor-equipped version, according to accounts from Ari Ben-Menashe and Michael Riconosciuto. Libyan intelligence's use of PROMIS-derived case management software would have given U.S. and Israeli intelligence access to Libyan operations.³

Lockerbie

On December 21, 1988, Pan American World Airways Flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 aboard and 11 on the ground. Scottish and American investigators eventually identified two Libyan intelligence officers as responsible. Libya refused extradition for years, leading to UN Security Council sanctions. The trial of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was held in the Netherlands under Scottish law; al-Megrahi was convicted in January 2001 and imprisoned in Scotland before being released on compassionate grounds in 2009. The investigation intersected with CIA drug trafficking allegations: allegations circulated that the CIA had been running a controlled drug delivery operation through baggage on the Frankfurt-to-London route, and that the bombers had substituted their device for a drug package, with details examined by the President's Commission on Aviation Security and Terrorism in 1990.²

Post-Gaddafi

Gaddafi was captured and killed on October 20, 2011, during the NATO-supported uprising of the Arab Spring. The subsequent civil war and arms proliferation from Libyan government stockpiles - particularly man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS) - dispersed weapons across the Sahel and Middle East.¹