Timeline Libya
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Tripoli was a Barbary State of North Africa and
then a province of Turkey before it became part of Libya.
(WUD, 1994, p.1516)
The national flag is green with no writing or decoration. Green
is the traditional color of Islam.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.D4)
c1179BC Ramessu III beat back a
Libyan invasion in his fifth year, this invasion was accompanied by war
galleys from the northern countries.
(R.M.-P.H.C.p.22)
631BC The city of Cyrene, in what
later became Libya, was first developed by the Greeks. It was later
settled by the Romans and destroyed in the earthquake of 365.
(SFC, 9/11/07, p.A16)
19BC Lucius Cornelius Balbus led
20,000 men of the 3rd Augusta Legion across the Hamada al-Hamra (Red
Rocky Plain) in the first Roman attack on the Garamantian heartland
(Libya). Romans turned Ghadames, Libya, into a garrison town.
(Arch, 9/02,
p.48)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamantes)(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
158 Apulieus of Madaura
(~124-~180), Romanised Berber and author of “The Golden Ass” (aka the
Metamorphoses) defended himself at the Roman basilica in Sabratha
(Libya) against charges of witchcraft in an oration known as Pro de se
magia, or more commonly the Apologia. The Golden Ass is the only Latin
novel which has survived in its entirety, and is an imaginative,
irreverent, and amusing work which relates the ludicrous adventures of
one Lucius, who experiments in magic and is accidentally turned into an
ass.
(Arch, 9/02, p.47)(http://tinyurl.com/lrgfb8)
203 Lucius Septimus Severus
(d.211), emperor of Rome, returned to visit home at Leptis Magna
(Libya).
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
365 Jul 21, An earthquake, whose
epicenter was in Crete, leveled the Egyptian Port of Alexandria as well
as the Roman outpost of Leptis Magna in Libya. Some 50,000 people died.
(www.earthscape.org/r2/jos/vol1-1june1997/pg55.html)(AM, Mar/Apr 97
p.18)
c1000BC The Garamantes, a tribal people descended
from Berbers and Saharan pastoralists, inhabited the area of the Fazzan
in southern Libya.
(AM, 3/04, p.24)
c500BC The Garamantes of southern Libya began
constructing underground tunnels to link shafts to sandstone aquifers.
(AM, 3/04, p.27)
c500BCE Phoenicians founded Tripoli about this time.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
400-300BCE The Greek writer Ephorus referred to the
Celts, Scythians, Persians and Libyans as the four great barbarian
peoples in the known world.
(AM, Mar/Apr 97 p.11)
300-200BCE The city of Berenice on the Mediterranean
coast was named by the Greeks.
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.C6)
30BCE Construction began on the Temple of Isis in
Sabratha, Libya. It was completed in 14CE.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
19BCE Romans turned Ghadames,
Libya, into a garrison town.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
0-100CE Berenice was acquired by the Romans. The site
later became a suburb of Benghazi and studied by British archeologist
John Lloyd (d.1999) in the 1970s.
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.C6)
70CE A Roman punitive expedition
forced the Garamantes of southern Libya to enter into an official
relationship with Rome.
(AM, 3/04, p.28)
193 Apr 14, Lucius Septimus
Severus (d.211), a native son of Leptis Magna in Libya, was crowned
emperor of Rome. Under his rule the empire reached its greatest extent
with almost 50 provinces.
(AM, 11/00, p.12)(MC, 4/14/02)(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
203 Lucius Septimus Severus
(d.211), emperor of Rome, returned to visit home at Leptis Magna, Libya
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
1109 Jul 12, Crusaders captured
harbor city of Tripoli.
(MC, 7/12/02)
1177 Aug 2, Philip of Flanders
arrived in Acre. A Christian army under the joint command of Philip of
Flanders and Raymond of Tripoli marched west to campaign against the
Muslims around Tripoli.
(ON, 6/07,
p.5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_of_Flanders)
1500-1800 Ottoman Turk rule extended over Libya.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
1798 Nov 4, Congress agreed to pay
a yearly tribute to Tripoli, considering it the only way to protect
U.S. shipping.
(HN, 11/4/98)
1801 May 14, The Pasha of Tripoli
symbolically declared war on the US by cutting down the glagstaff in
front of the US Consulate, after learning that Pres. Jefferson had
refused to pay a renewed tribute of $225,000.
(ON, 10/06, p.8)
1801 Jun 10, The North African
state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over
safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean. Tripoli
declared war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute.
(AP, 6/10/97)(HN, 6/10/98)
1801 Jul 17, The U.S. fleet
arrived in Tripoli after Pasha Yusuf Karamanli declared war for being
refused tribute.
(HN, 7/17/99)
1801 Aug 1, The American schooner
Enterprise captured the Barbary cruiser Tripoli.
(HN, 8/1/98)
1803 Oct, The USS Philadelphia was
captured by the Tripolitans. 307 sailors were held for ransom by the
Pasha of Tripoli.
(www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/barb-war/burn-phl.htm)(ON, 10/06,
p.8)
1803 Dec 23, Lt. Stephen Decatur,
commanding the schooner Enterprise, captured a Barbary ketch, which was
entered into the US Navy as the Intrepid.
(ON, 2/03, p.2)
1804 Feb 16, Lt. Stephen Decatur
attacked Tripoli, where pirates held the USS Philadelphia. Decatur and
76 volunteers, aboard the captured Intrepid, attempted to recapture the
Philadelphia, which caught fire, exploded and sank. Decatur and his
crew escaped.
(AP, 2/16/98)(HN, 2/16/98)(ON, 2/03, p.2)
1804 Aug 3, US Commodore Edward
Prebble’s squadron bombarded Tripoli inflicting heavy damages on the
city.
(ON, 2/03, p.4)
1805 Apr 27, US navy ships began
to bombard the Tripoli port of Derna. Mercenaries gathered in Egypt and
a small contingent of US Marines under former Tunis consul William
Eaton attacked Tripoli and captured the city of Derna [later part of
Libya].
(AP, 4/27/97)(HN, 4/27/98)(ON, 10/06, p.9)
1805 Jun 4, The US signed a Treaty
of Peace and Amity at Tripoli. The US agreed to pay Tripoli $60,000 in
war reparations and was in turn absolved of tribute demands. The treaty
was ratified by the US on Apr 17, 1806.
(ON, 2/03,
p.4)(www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1805t.htm)
1815 Aug 5, A peace treaty with
Tripoli, which followed treaties with Algeria and Tunis (Aug 28),
brought an end to the Barbary Wars. Commodores Stephen Decatur and
William Bainbridge had conducted successful operations against the
Barbary States of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.
(HN, 8/5/98)(WSJ, 10/9/01, p.A22)(ON, 10/06, p.10)
1823 British Major Dixon Denham
and Captain Hugh Clapperton (1788-1827) entered Northern Nigeria from
the north, crossing the desert from Tripoli.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.74)(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Clapperton)
1825 Jul 16, Alexander Gordon
Laing (32), British Army Major, set off on camel from Tripoli in an
attempt to become the 1st European to cross the Sahara Desert and reach
the fabled city of Timbuktu (Mali).
(SSFC, 1/1/06, p.M2)(ON, 11/06, p.5)
1911 Sep 30, Italy declared war on
Turkey over control of Tripoli.
(HN, 9/30/98)
1911 Oct 5, Italian troops
occupied Tripoli.
(MC, 10/5/01)
1911 Oct, Italian troops began
deporting Libyans to Italian islands in the Adriatic. More then 5,000
Libyans were deported between 1911 and WW II in an effort to break the
resistance.
(AFP, 10/26/07)
1911 Nov 1, Italian planes
performed the first aerial bombing on Tanguira oasis in Libya. Lt.
Giulio Cavotti dropped a hand grenade on an oasis outside of Tripoli.
In 2001 Sven Lindqvist authored "A History of Bombing."
(HN, 11/1/98)(SFC, 4/22/01, BR p.3)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked Turkish
North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica. First use
of a plane dropping bombs. [see Nov 1]
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911 Nov 5, Italy attacked Turkish
North-Africa (Libya), and took Tripoli and Cyrenaica. First use
of a plane dropping bombs.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1911-1931 Omar Mukhtar harassed the Italian forces
attempting to subdue Libya. The 1981 film “Lion in the Desert” starred
Anthony Quinn as Omar Mukhtar.
(Econ, 11/26/05, p.29)
1922 Sep 13, In El Azizia, Libya,
a temperature of 136.4 degrees Fahrenheit (57.8 Celsius) was the
hottest ever measured on Earth.
(AP, 7/23/03)
1940 Sep 12, Italian forces began
an offensive into Egypt from Libya.
(HN, 9/12/98)
1941 Jan 21, Australia &
Britain attacked Tobruk, Libya.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1941 Jan 22, British and
Australian troops captured Tobruk from Italians.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1941 Jan 28, French General
Charles DeGaulle's Free French forces sacked south Libya oasis.
(HN, 1/28/99)
1941 Feb 6, The RAF cleared the
way as British took Benghazi, Libya, trapping thousands of Italians.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1941 Feb 11, Lt-Gen Erwin Rommel
arrived in Tripoli.
(MC, 2/11/02)
1941 Feb 14, German Afrika Korps
landed in Tripoli, Libya.
(MC, 2/14/02)
1941 Mar 21, The last Italian post
in East Libya fell to the British.
(HN, 3/21/98)
1941 Mar 24, German troops
occupied El Agheila, Libya.
(MC, 3/24/02)
1941 Mar 30, The German Afrika
Korps under General Erwin Rommel began its first offensive against
British forces in Libya.
(HN, 3/30/99)
1941 Apr 4, Field Marshal Erwin
Rommel captured the British held town of Benghazi in North Africa.
(HN, 4/4/99)
1941 Apr 13, There was a heavy
German assault on Tobruk.
(MC, 4/13/02)
1941 May 1, A German assault took
place on Tobruk.
(MC, 5/1/02)
1941 Dec 7, The 8 month German
siege of Tobruk ended.
(MC, 12/7/01)
1941 Dec 13, British forces
launched an offensive in Libya.
(HN, 12/13/98)
1942 Jan 29, German and Italian
troops took Benghazi in North Africa.
(HN, 1/29/99)
1942 Mar 26, A German offensive
took place in North-Africa under Colonel-General Rommel.
(SS, 3/26/02)
1942 May 27, German General Erwin
Rommel began a major offensive in Libya with his Afrika Korps.
(HN, 5/27/99)
1942 Jun 21, German General Erwin
Rommel captured the port city of Tobruk in North Africa and 25,000
Allied troops.
(HN, 6/21/98)(Camelot, 6/21/99)
1942 Jul 11(Jun 11), The German
army was defeated at El-Alamein, North Africa.
(MC, 7/11/02)
1942 Aug 10, Gen. Bernard Law
Montgomery was named commandant of the British 8th Army campaigning in
N. Africa. He arrived Aug 13.
(www.topedge.com/panels/ww2/na/frame.html)
1942 Moammar Gadhafi, the "Guide
of the Masses," was born.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C12)
1943 Jan 13, General Leclerc's
Free French forces merged with the British under Montgomery in Libya.
(HN, 1/13/99)
1943 Jan 22, Axis forces pulled
out of Tripoli for Tunisia, and destroyed bases as they left.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1943 Apr 28, German-Italian forces
launched a counter offensive in North-Africa.
(MC, 4/28/02)
1945 In Libya deadly attacks took
place against the Jewish community, which numbered some 40,000,
prompting many to leave.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A19)
1948 In Libya more deadly attacks
took place against the Jewish community, prompting most of those
remaining to leave. A few thousand remained until 1967.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A19)
1949 Nov 21, The UN Assembly
decided for the eventual independence of Italy’s former colonies. In
the meantime they remained under UN supervision. United Nations granted
Libya its independence in the year 1952.
(EWH, 1968, p.1176)(HN, 11/21/98)
1951 Libya enacted a constitution
that formally protected the minority rights of Jews, Italians, Maltese
and Greeks.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A19)
1966 Occidental Petroleum under
Armand Hammer won valuable drilling rights in Libya by bribing a key
member of the Libyan royal family.
(SFC, 1/17/96, p.D7)
1967 Jul, In the wake of the Six
Day War some 2,000 Jews in Libya were compelled to leave the country.
(WSJ, 1/10/07, p.A19)
1969 Sep 1, A coup in Libya
overthrew the monarchy of King Idris and brought Moammar Gadhafi (27)
to power. Crown Prince al-Hassan al-Reda, was acting ruler while King
al-Senousi, al-Senousi's grandfather, was undergoing medical treatment
in Turkey. Gadhafi emerged as leader of the revolutionary government
and ordered the closure of a U.S. Air Force base.
(AP, 9/1/99)(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C12)(AP, 6/26/05)
1969-1984 Libya’s Crown Prince al-Reda and his family
remained under house arrest for 7 years after the coup. He then spent 2
years in detention without trial where he was said to have been
tortured. He suffered a brain tumor that paralyzed his body and
traveled to Britain for treatment. He died 6 years later when the
Libyan office in London suspended payment for the treatment.
(AP, 6/26/05)
1970 Jun 11, The United States
presence in Libya came to an end as the last detachment left Wheelus
Air Base.
(AP, 6/11/00)
1970 Jul 21, Libya ordered the
confiscation of all Jewish property.
(http://tinyurl.com/48p4fy)
1970 Nov 27, Syria joined the pact
linking Libya, Egypt and Sudan.
(HN, 11/27/98)
1970 Colonel Qaddafi expelled
20,000 Italians from Libya.
(Econ, 8/2/08,
p.54)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Italians)
1972 Libya’s leader Muammar
Qaddafi proclaimed his Third Universal Theory, aimed at turning Libya
into a model of applied socialism and popular democracy.
(Econ, 9/22/07, p.61)
1973 Feb 21, Israeli fighter
planes shot down a Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 over the Sinai
Desert, killing over 100 people.
(AP, 2/21/98)
1973 Jul 20, The Japanese Red Army
and Lebanese guerrillas hijacked a Japan Airlines plane over the
Netherlands. The passengers and crew were released in Libya where the
hijackers blew up the plane.
(SFC, 11/9/00,
p.C2)(www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1771)
1973 Oct 16, OPEC, the Arab
oil-producing nations, announced they would begin cutting back on oil
exports to Western nations and Japan. The next day, the five Arab
members of the OPEC committee were joined in Kuwait by the oil
ministers of Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The result was
a total embargo that lasted until March 1974 and caused oil prices to
quadruple.
(www.harvardir.org/articles/1659/)(AP,
10/17/97)(WSJ, 7/28/03, p.A8)
1973 Nov 19, Saudi Arabia, Libya
and other Arab states proclaimed a total ban on oil exports to the
United States. Gasoline prices quadrupled from twenty-five cents per
gallon to over one dollar. The New York stock market took its sharpest
drop in 19 years.
(HN,
11/19/98)(www.bullnotbull.com/archive/market-01222006.html)
1973 The Irish Navy caught Joe
Cahill as he tried to smuggle 5 tons of Russian-made explosives, guns
and ammunition from Libya.
(SFC, 7/26/04, p.B4)
1974 Mar 17 Arab oil ministers,
with the exception of Libya, announced the end the oil embargo on the
US.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis)
1974 May, Major Abdel Jalloud,
Libya's second in command, traveled to Moscow and concluded the first
in a series of arms sales agreements that remain the largest ever
reached by the Soviets.
(www.heritage.org/research/MiddleEast/bg362.cfm)
1975 Libya’s leader Muammar
Qaddafi published The Green Book. The 3-part book rejects modern
conceptions of liberal democracy and encourages the institution of a
form of direct democracy based on popular committees.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Book)
1977 Mar 2, Libya amended its
constitution and changed its name from The Libyan Arab Republic to The
Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahirya.
(http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/dr_ibrahim_ighneiwa/libyans.htm)
1977 Nov 19, The Libyan flag was
adopted, after Libya left the Federation of Arabs Republic, which
consisted of Libya, Egypt and Syria.
(www.worldflags101.com/l/libya-flag.aspx)
1977 Col. Moammar Gadhafi launched
his Jamahariya, or "State of the Masses."
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C12)
1978 Aug 31, Imam Mousa
Sadr, the spiritual leader of Lebanon's Shiite Muslim community,
disappeared along with 2 companions during a visit to Libya. In 2008 a
Lebanese prosecutor charged Moammar Khadafy and 6 other Libyan
officials in the disappearance.
(AP,
9/3/03)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musa_al-Sadr)(SFC, 8/28/08, p.A7)
1979 Jan 10, Billy Carter, the
brother of US Pres. Jimmy Carter, made allegedly anti-Semitic remarks.
Billy eventually registered as a foreign agent of the Libyan government
and received a $220,000 loan. This led to a Senate hearing over alleged
influence peddling which some in the press dubbed "Billygate."
(http://tinyurl.com/2krnv2)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Carter)
1979 Apr 11, Idi Amin was deposed
as president of Uganda as rebels and exiles backed by Tanzanian forces
seized control of Kampala. Amin escaped to Libya and settled into exile
in Saudi Arabia.
(AP, 4/11/97)(SFC, 10/15/99,
p.D7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idi_Amin)
1979 Dec 2, Some 2,000 Libyans
ransacked the US embassy at Tripoli, Libya, chanting support for the
radical Islamic regime that took power in Iran earlier in the year.
(AP, 12/30/03)
1980 Jul 23, The US Senator
Judiciary Committee was reported to be officially joining those
investigating allegations of misconduct in Billy Carter's relationship
with Libya.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1980-7/1980-07-23-ABC-2.html)
1980 Colonel Muammar Khaddafi of
Libya recruited the nationless, disenfranchised nomads by implying that
he would train the Kel Tamashek and provide weapons to fight for their
independence from the Malian government. The rebels slowly realized
that Khadaffi's only intention was to use them in his own wars. Some of
these dejected fighters formed the band Tinariwen in Khadaffi's rebel
camp.
(www.jacneed.com/10Tinariwen.htm)
1981 May 6, The US expelled Libyan
diplomats.
(www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html)
1981 Aug 12, President Reagan,
citing alleged Libyan involvement in terrorism, ordered U.S. jets to
attack targets in Libya.
(AP, 12/19/03)
1981 Aug 19, Two U.S. Navy F-14
jet fighters shot down a pair of Soviet-built Libyan SU-22s in a
dogfight over the Gulf of Sidra.
(AP, 8/19/06)
1981 Dec 11, Concerned about the
safety of Americans in Libya, the Reagan administration asked them to
leave. It also invalidated the use of US passports for travel to Libya.
(AP, 12/19/03)
1981 Libya froze state wages.
(Econ, 3/11/06, p.42)
1981-1986 In Uganda Yoweri Museveni led a five-year
bush war against Milton Obote. Museveni had trained in a Libya
guerrilla camp.
(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-8)(AP, 12/16/02)
1982 Mar 10, Pres Reagan
proclaimed economic sanctions against Libya and banned Libyan oil
imports, because of the continued support of terrorism.
(HN,
3/10/98)(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=38082)
1983 Nov 25, Syria and Saudi
Arabia announced a cease-fire in PLO civil war in Tripoli.
(www.defense-update.com/2005/02/arafats-dissidents-challenge-to-abu.html)
1983 Edwin Wilson was convicted of
running arms to Libya. In 2003 the conviction was thrown out because
prosecutors knew he worked for the CIA and misled the court.
(WSJ, 10/29/03, p.A1)
1984 Apr 17, Yvonne Fletcher, a
British police officer, was killed from rifle shots fired from a window
of the Libyan embassy in London during a demonstration against Moammar
Khadafy. Diplomatic relations were soon severed and not restored until
1999. Libya later gave Fletcher’s family some compensation. In 2004 a
joint British-Libyan investigation into the murder was launched.
In 2009 Moamer Kadhafi officially apologized for the shooting.
(SFC, 7/8/99, p.A8)(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C12)(AP,
4/7/04)(AFP, 10/26/09)
1985 Jan 8, The Rev. Lawrence
Martin Jenco was kidnapped in Lebanon. He was released 19 months later.
(AP, 1/8/05)
1985 Aug 21, Tunisia expelled 253
Libyans in apparent retaliation for Libya’s expulsion of over 20,000
Tunisian workers in recent weeks.
(http://tinyurl.com/yq3x4e)
1985 Charles Taylor escaped from a
Plymouth County jail in Massachusetts while awaiting extradition to
Liberia, where he was accused of embezzling money as an official in the
dictatorship of Samuel Doe. He went to Libya received military training
as a guest of Col. Moammar Ghadafi. Taylor met Foday Sankoh, a corporal
from Sierra Leone while training in Libya.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 12/13/00, p.B5)(AP,
12/16/02)
1986 Jan 1, Libyan leader
Moammar Ghadafi threatened to retaliate if attacked as the United
States built its strength in the Mediterranean .
(HN, 1/1/99)
1986 Jan 7, US president Reagan
proclaimed economic sanctions against Libya.
(www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/libya.cfm)
1986 Jan 23, U.S. began maneuvers
off the Libyan coast.
(HN, 1/23/99)
1986 Apr 5, A Berlin nightclub was
bombed and 2 US soldiers and a woman were killed and 230 injured.
Palestinian Yasser Shraydi (Chraidi) was suspected of playing a lead
role in the bombing of the La Belle discotheque. In 1996 he was
extradited from Lebanon to face charges in Germany. In 1996 Andrea
Hasler was arrested in Greece and extradited to Germany. Also a woman
named Verena Chanaa, suspected of planting the bomb, and her former
husband named Ali Chanaa were arrested in Berlin. In 1997 Musbah
Abulghasen Eter was arrested by Italian police in Rome in connection
with the bombing. In 2001 V. Chanaa was sentenced to 14 years, A.
Chanaa and Eter were sentenced to 12 years, and Chraidi was sentenced
to 14 years. Libya was implicated and in 2004 agreed to pay $35 million
in compensation.
(SFC, 5/234/96, p.A14)(SFC, 10/12/96, p.A12)(WSJ,
8/28/97, p.A1)(SFC, 8/28/97, p.C3)(SFC, 11/14/01, p.A18)(AP, 9/3/04)
1986 Apr 14, Americans got first
word of the U.S. air raid on Libya (because of the time difference, it
was the early morning of April 15th where the attack occurred). US
aircraft attacked five terrorist locations in Libya in response to the
Apr 5 terrorist attack in Berlin. In 2003 Joseph T. Stanik authored "El
Dorado Canyon," an account of the military strike.
(AP, 4/14/97)(HN, 4/14/98)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.C4)(WSJ,
2/11/03, p.D8)
1986 Apr 14, Italy, which opposed
an American strike against Libya, warned Libya a day before the strike,
which was launched from a NATO base on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
(AP, 10/30/08)
1986 Apr 15, The United States
launched an air raid with F-111 warplanes against Libya in response to
the bombing of a discotheque in Berlin on April 5; Libya said 41
people, mostly civilians, were killed in Tripoli and Benghazi. The
step-daughter of Moammar Gadhafi was among those killed near Tripoli by
the US bombing.
(HN, 4/15/98)(WSJ, 8/30/00, p.A1)(AP, 12/19/08)(AP,
10/31/08)
1986 Apr 16, Dispelling rumors he
was dead, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared on television to
condemn the US raid on his country.
(AP, 4/16/06)
1986 Ghadames, Libya, was
designated a World Heritage site.
(SSFC, 6/27/04, p.D12)
1987 In Burkina Faso Blaise
Compaore, trained in Gadhafi's guerrilla camps, seized power in a
bloody takeover. Libya and Burkina Faso later denied repeated
accusations of gunrunning to West Africa hot spots.
(SFC, 2/19/00, p.A10)(AP, 12/16/02)
1987 France ousted Libyan troops
from a disputed area of northern Chad. In the proxy war, code-named
Arid Farmer, France and the US backed government forces against Libyan
troops.
(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)(WSJ, 2/11/03, p.D8)
1988 Dec 21, Pan Am Flight 103 was
downed over Lockerbie, Scotland by a terrorist bomb. 270 people were
killed aboard the Boeing 747. Libya was accused of responsibility for
the bombing, which killed 259 people onboard and 11 on the ground. Two
Libyan operatives, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and A-Amin Khalifa Fahimah,
were indicted in 1991 and thought to be in hiding in Libya. They were
sent to the Netherlands for trial in 1999 and implicated Mohammed Abu
Talb, a Palestinian terrorist jailed in Sweden. In 2000 Ahmad Behbahani
(32) told a 60 Minutes journalist from a refugee camp in Turkey that he
proposed the Pan Am operation and coordinated the 1996 bombing of the
Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. He also claimed that Iran was behind the
1994 bombing in Argentina that killed 86 people. Behbahani was later
called a fraud by the CIA and FBI. In 2001 a Scottish court convicted
Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan intelligence officer, of murder
in the 1998 bombing of Pan am Flight 103. A 2nd Libyan, Lamen Khalifa
Fhimah, was acquitted. The conviction was upheld in 2002. In 2003 Libya
set up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed.
(WSJ, 12/18/95, p.A-9)(SFC, 5/11/96, p.A-8)(SFC,
6/7/97, p.A4)(AP, 12/21/97)(WSJ, 4/6/99, p.A1)(SFC, 11/25/99,
p.A14)(SFC, 6/5/00, p.A9)(SFC, 6/6/00, p.A10)(SFEC, 6/11/00,
p.A20)(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 3/15/02, p.A9)(AP, 8/15/03)
1989 Jan 4, US Navy F-14s shot
down 2 Libyan jet fighters over Mediterranean.
(www.history.navy.mil/wars/foabroad.htm)
1989 Jul 27, Eighty people were
killed when a Korean Air DC-10 crashed in Libya.
(AP, 7/27/99)
1989 Sep 19, A Paris-bound French
DC-10, UTA Flight 772, was bombed over the Sahara desert of Niger and
all 170 passengers died. French authorities placed the blame on Libya’s
Abdallah Senoussi, brother-in-law of Moammar Khadafy and chief of
foreign operations for the Libyan secret service. The six Libyan
suspects were named by a French judge in 1998 and tried in absentia in
1999. The attack was in retaliation for French intervention on behalf
of Chad in a war with Libya since the mid 1980s. In 2004 Libya signed a
$170 million compensation accord with families of the people killed. In
2008 a federal judge in Washington ordered Libya and six of its
officials to pay more than $6 billion in damages to the families of 7
Americans killed in the attack.
(SFC, 5/7/97, p.C3)(SFEC,10/19/97, p.A26)(WSJ,
1/30/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A11)(SFC, 3/9/99, p.B10)(AP,
9/19/99)(AP, 1/9/04)(Reuters, 1/16/08)
1989-1993 An outbreak of Old World Screwworm was
eradicated by a coordinated int’l. effort.
(SFC, 6/13/98, p.A7)
1991 Nov 14, U.S. and British
authorities announced indictments against two Libyan intelligence
officials in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
(AP, 11/14/01)
1992 Mar 23, The president of the
U.N. Security Council announced that Libya had offered to surrender two
men suspected in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
Libya reversed itself two days later; however, the suspects surrendered
for trial seven years later. One was subsequently convicted, the other
found innocent.
(AP, 3/23/02)
1992 Mar 25, Libyan leader Col.
Moammar Gadhafi backed away from an offer to turn over two suspects in
the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.
(AP, 3/25/97)
1992 Apr 7, PLO chairman Yasser
Arafat survived the crash landing of his plane in the Libyan desert;
three crew members were killed.
(AP, 4/7/97)
1992 Apr 14, Libya cut itself off
from the world for 24 hours to mark the sixth anniversary of the U.S.
air raid, the same day the World Court rejected Libya's appeal to
prevent sanctions against it for refusing to turn over suspects in the
bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.
(AP, 4/14/97)
1992 Apr 15, Countries barred
Libyan jets from their airspace and ordered diplomats to go home
because of Libya's refusal to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan
Am Flight 103. U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on arms sales
and air travel against Libya to prod Gadhafi into surrendering two
suspects wanted in the Pan Am 103.
(AP, 4/15/97)(AP, 12/19/03)
1992 Dec 22, A Libyan Boeing 727
jetliner crashed, killing 157 people.
(AP, 12/22/97)
1993 Dec 10, Mansour El-Kikhia,
former Libyan ambassador to the UN, was kidnapped in Cairo. The US CIA
later reported that he was taken to Libya and executed in early 1994.
El-Kikhia’s book “Libya’s Qaddafi: The Politics of Contradiction” was
published in the US in 1997.
(SSFC, 5/21/06, p.E5)(http://tinyurl.com/lnqr5)
1993 There was a coup attempt
against Moammar Ghadafi.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1995 Sep 1, Moammar Ghadafi of
Libya announced the expulsion of all 30,000 Palestinians from Libya.
More than 1,200 ended up in a border camp between Libya and Egypt.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E1)
1995 Libya declared jihad against
NATO, but no concrete action was taken.
(WSJ, 10/10/01, p.A10)
1995 The Libyan Islamic Fighting
Group, an Islamist militant group, first announced its existence vowing
to overthrow Gaddafi and launching a violent campaign.
(AP, 9/6/09)
1996 Jan, Louis Farrakhan visited
Libya and received a promise of $1 billion from Col. Moammar Ghadafi.
His tour also included stops in Iran, Nigeria and the Sudan.
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A3)
1996 Feb, In Libya a plan to kill
Moammar Ghadafi failed and several bystanders were killed. In 1998
David Shayler, a former member of the British intelligence services,
revealed the information in France while fighting extradition to
Britain. The British foreign secretary denied the attack. Shayler
returned to London in 2000 to face charges.
(SFC, 8/17/98, p.A9)(SFC, 8/22/00, p.A10)
1996 Mar 28, Col Gadhaffi of Libya
sent troops to put down unrest in northeaster Libya after a 400
prisoners, many including dissidents and Islamic militants, escaped
from prison last week.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-1)
1996 Apr 4, US intelligence
indicated that Libya was building a chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah,
40 miles southeast of Tripoli. The plant was reportedly designed to
replace a plant at Rabta, 55 miles SW of Tripoli, where Libya insists
that only pharmaceuticals are produced.
(SFC, 4/4/96, p.A-3)
1996 May 17, Libya was preparing
to expel some of its 30,000 Palestinians.
(WSJ, 5/17/96,p.A-1)
1996 May 29, Col. Moammar Ghadafi
left Cairo after a five-day visit. He went about town with his
well-armed female bodyguards and spoke with numerous intellectuals,
union leaders, business leaders and officials. He offered a vision of
Libyan style democracy, a decentralized government based on popular
committees.
(SFC, 5/30/96, p.A10)
1996 Jun, In Libya up to 1,200
people died, including more than 200 guards, at the Abu Salim prison
run by the country's internal security agency. In 2009 Libya opened an
investigation into the incident. The killings took place amid
confrontation between the government and rebels from the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group, an Islamist militant group which first announced its
existence in 1995.
(AP, 9/6/09)
1996 Jul 12, In Libya at least 20
people were killed in Tripoli at a soccer match. Bodyguards loyal to
the sons of Moammar Ghadafi fired at spectators who shouted hostile
slogans. A stampede resulted.
(SFC, 7/15/96, p.A11)
1996 Aug 23, The Nation of Islam
applied to the US Treasury Dept. for permission to accept a $1 bil
donation from Col. Moammar Gadhafi that was promised to Rev. Louis
Farrakhan to help America’s black people.
(WSJ, 8/26/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 6, Turkey’s prime
minister urged Moammar Ghadafi to sign a document to denounce Kurdish
rebel terrorism but instead Ghadafi condemned Turkish repression of the
Kurds. A trade deal hung in suspension.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, A9)
1996 Nov 23, A member of the
Fighting Islamic Group, Abdullah Guryou, hurled a grenade at Moammar
Ghadafi in the desert town of Brak. Ghadafi was not hurt.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1997 Jan 2, In Libya 6 military
officers and 2 civilians were executed on charges of spying. Experts
believed they case was related to the 1993 coup attempt.
(SFC, 1/3/97, p.A17)
1997 Mar 10, The Vatican
established diplomatic relations with Libya.
(SFC, 3/11/97, p.A11)
1997 Dec 2, It was reported that
Libya was constructing some 2,000 miles of tunnels with 13-foot
concrete pipes. Libya called it the Great Man-Made River Project and it
stretched from Tunisia to Egypt. Analysts feared it would be used for
military purposes. The primary contractor was Dong Ah, a South Korean
construction conglomerate and much of the equipment used was of US make.
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.A11)
1998 Feb 27, The World Court ruled
that it has the authority to decide on the location of a trial for the
2 Libyans accused of blowing up a jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.
(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 24, The United States and
Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am
flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.
A former Libyan intelligence agent was later convicted of murder; the
other suspect was acquitted.
(AP, 8/24/08)
1998 Aug 26, Libya indicated that
it would accept an American and British proposal that 2 suspects of the
1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet be tried in the Netherlands by Scottish
judges.
(SFC, 8/27/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 5, Libyan leader Moammar
Ghadafi was reported to have turned his face to Africa rather than a
pan-Arab unity: ""I would like Libya to become a black country. Hence,
I recommend to Libyan men to marry only black women, and to Libyan
women to marry black men."
(SFC, 10/6/98, p.A14)
1998 Dec 4, The London Guardian
was cited in a report that 3 high security officials in Libya, were
convicted and sentenced to prison for dereliction of duty. Abdullah
Senussi, Musa Koussa and Mohammed al-Misrati were thought to be the
superiors of the men wanted for the 1988Lockerbie Pan Am bombing.
(SFC, 12/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 15, The 500 members of
Libya’s General People’s Congress voted for conditional approval for
the trial of Pan Am Flight 103 bombing suspects in a 3rd country.
(SFC, 12/16/98, p.A15)
1998 In Libya children at Al-Fateh
Children’s Hospital were found diagnosed with HIV. In all 438
children were found to be infected along with 20 nursing mothers. By
2007 57 children had died of AIDS.
(SSFC, 4/1/07, p.A17)
1999 Feb, In Libya health workers
including 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were arrested on
charges they intentionally infected some 393 children with the AIDS
virus as part of an experiment to find a cure. The defendants were
tortured daily for their 1st 3 months of captivity. On May 6, 2004, the
nurses and doctor were sentenced to death.
(www.wsws.org/articles/2004/sep2004/liby-s02.shtml)(AP, 5/6/04)(SSFC,
6/6/04, E3)
1999 Apr 5, Libya handed over to
UN officials 2 men accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103.
They were then flown to the Hague to be tried under Scottish law. UN
Sec. Gen'l. Kofi Annan immediately suspended economic sanctions on
Libya.
(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(SFC, 4/6/99, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/6/99,
p.A1)
1999 Apr 18, Pres. Kabila of Congo
and Ugandan Pres. Museweni signed a cease-fire agreement that was
mediated by Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi. Rwanda and Congolese rebels
rejected the deal.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A11)
1999 Apr 28, The US announced that
it would allow US firms to sell food and medicine to Iran, Sudan and
Libya.
(SFC, 4/29/99, p.A3)
1999 Jun 11, The US and Libya
engaged in their first official meeting in 18 years. The US stipulated
conditions to be met prior to the lifting of sanctions.
(SFC, 6/12/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun 13, In South Africa Pres.
Mandela welcomed visiting Libyan leader Moammar Ghadafi as his last
official guest. Ghadafi was on his first foreign tour since sanctions
were lifted in April.
(SFC, 6/14/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun 21, It was reported that
Libya would pay $40 million to the families of those killed in the Sep
19, 1989 bombing of a French jet.
(SFC, 6/22/99, p.A12)
1999 Jul 7, Britain and Libya
announced a resumption of diplomatic relations.
(SFC, 7/8/99, p.A8)
1999 Jul 27, The US eased
sanctions against Iran, Libya and Sudan to allow the sale of food,
medicine and medical equipment.
(SFC, 7/27/99, p.A5)
1999 Sep 6, In Libya Moammar
Ghadafi unveiled plans for a new, safe, 5-passenger "Rocket of the
Jamahariya" automobile.
(SFC, 9/8/99, p.A16)
1999 Nov 24, In Britain
authorities intercepted Scud missile components labeled as auto parts
originating in Taiwan and destined for Libya.
(SFC, 1/10/00, p.A10)
1999 Dec 1, Prime Minister Massimo
D'Alema of Italy began a 2-day visit that involved a $5.5 billion oil
and gas project involving ENI, an Italian oil company. It was the 1st
visit by a Western head of government since sanctions in 1992.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
2000 Jan 13, A Swiss Shorts
300-360 airplane carrying Libyan oil workers to a refinery at Marsa
el-Brega crashed off the Libya coast and at least 15 of 41 people were
killed.
(SFC, 1/14/00, p.D2)(WSJ, 1/14/00, p.A1)
2000 Mar, Col. Gadhafi ordered the
abolition of a dozen ministries and the supposed transfer of their
power to the grass roots.
(SFEC, 4/9/00, p.C12)
2000 Aug 29, In Libya 6 former
hostages held captive in the Philippines arrived to thank Moammar
Ghadafi for his role in securing their release.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.A12)
2000 Sep 8, In the Philippines Abu
Sayyaf rebels freed 4 more hostages held since April 23. Libya paid a
reported $1 million per hostage.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A10)(SFEC, 9/10/00, p.C15)
2000 Oct 5, Nigerians from Libya
arrived home on repatriation flights and bore tales of a pogrom by
youths resentful of economic immigrants.
(WSJ, 10/6/00, p.A1)
2001 Jan 4, It was reported that
Africans from Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Congo had
resumed treks across the Sahara to Libya for better economic conditions.
(SFC, 1/5/01, p.A18)
2001 Jan 31, In the Netherlands a
Scottish court sentenced Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, a Libyan
intelligence officer, to life in a Scottish prison for the 1998 bombing
of Pan Am Flight 103. A second Libyan was acquitted.
(SFC, 1/31/01, p.A11)(SFC, 2/1/01, p.A1)(WSJ,
2/1/01, p.A1)(AP, 12/19/03)
2001 May 30, Libya flew troops and
weapons to the Central African Republic to help Pres. Patasse to put
down a coup attempt.
(WSJ, 5/31/01, p.A1)
2001 In 2004 the UN gathered
evidence suggesting the North Korea supplied Libya with nearly 2 tons
of uranium in 2001.
(WSJ, 5/24/04, p.A1)
2002 May 28, Libya offered $10
million in compensation for each victim in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am
Flight 103 in exchange for removal from the US list of states that
sponsor terrorism.
(SFC, 5/29/02, p.A1)
2002 May 29, Libya denied that it
had any relationship to the deal made by lawyers to pay $2.7 billion to
the families of Pan Am Flight 103 victims. The move was seen as a ploy
and a settlement was expected soon.
(SFC, 5/30/02, p.A10)
2002 Aug 7, The first British
Cabinet minister to visit this country in two decades met with Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi, saying Libya was making a serious attempt to
move away from its international pariah status.
(AP, 8/7/02)
2002 Oct 24, Libya has decided to
withdraw from the Arab League, Moammar Gadhafi's government announced.
(AP, 10/24/02)
2002 Dec 28, Libyan soldiers ended
a yearlong deployment to protect the Central African Republic
government against a string of coup attempts. They were to be replaced
by troops from Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Gabon
and Mali.
(AP, 12/31/02)
2003 Jan 20, The U.N. human rights
watchdog elected a Libyan diplomat as its president for this year,
despite concern from the United States about the country's poor record
on civil liberties and its alleged role in sponsoring terrorism.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Apr 30, Libyan Foreign
Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said his government accepted
responsibility for the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 5/1/03, A7)
2003 Aug 13, Libya agreed to set
up a $2.7 billion fund for families of 270 people killed in the 1988
Pan Am bombing.
(AP, 8/13/04)
2003 Aug 31, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi said a second agreement over compensation has been reached
between his country and the families of 170 victims of a French
airliner that exploded in 1989.
(AP, 9/1/03)
2003 Sep 12, The UN Security
Council lifted 11-year-old sanctions on Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's
government took responsibility for bombing a Pan Am jet over Scotland
and agreed to pay the victims' families $2.7 billion.
(AP, 9/12/03)
2003 Sep 24, Families of people
killed when US jets bombed Libya urged Tripoli to suspend payments to
relatives of the victims of the 1988 downing of a Pan Am airliner until
they receive compensation from the United States.
(AP, 9/24/03)
2003 Oct 4, A shipment of
uranium-enriching centrifuge gear was seized at the Italian port of
Taranto in 2003, forcing Libya to admit and eventually renounce its
efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. In 2009 Urs Tinner, suspected of
involvement in the world's biggest nuclear smuggling ring, said in a
Swiss TV documentary that he tipped off US intelligence about a
delivery of centrifuge parts meant for Libya's nuclear weapons program.
(http://articles.latimes.com/2004/nov/28/world/fg-network28)(WSJ,
12/31/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/22/09)
2003 Dec 19, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi, after secret negotiations with the United States and Britain,
agreed to halt his nation's drive to develop nuclear and chemical
weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them. Libya admitted to
nuclear fuel projects, including possessing centrifuges and centrifuge
parts used in uranium enrichment. Libya showed American and British
inspectors a significant quantity of mustard agent. Libya acknowledged
it intended to acquire equipment and develop capabilities to create
biological weapons. Libya admitted "elements of the history of its
cooperation with North Korea" to develop extended-range Scud missiles.
(AP, 12/19/03)(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 28, A team led by U.N.
nuclear chief Mohammed ElBaradei toured 4 atomic facilities in Libya
and found dismantled equipment. ElBaradei said Libya appeared to reach
only an experimental level in its attempts to enrich uranium, essential
for a nuclear bomb.
(AP, 12/29/04)
2003 Libya planned a covert
operation to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
according to 2004 testimony by 2 jailed participants.
(SFC, 6/10/04, A10)
2004 Jan 5, Pres. Bush extended a
1986 order of sanctions against Libya.
(WSJ, 1/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 8, Libya agreed to
compensate family members of victims of a 1989 bombing of a French
passenger plane over the Niger desert that killed 170 people.
(AP, 1/8/05)
2004 Jan 9, Libya signed a $170
million compensation accord with families of people who died in the
1989 bombing of a French jetliner.
(AP, 1/9/04)
2004 Jan 14, A UN agency said
Libya has ratified the nuclear test ban treaty. The treaty is 12
nations short of the 44 ratifications needed for it to enter into
force. Once it comes into force, the treaty bans any nuclear weapon
test explosion in any environment.
(AP, 1/14/04)
2004 Feb 10, Italian Premier
Silvio Berlusconi met with Libya leader Moammar Gadhafi, and the United
States said it had restored diplomatic contacts with the country. In
London, Prime Minister Tony Blair held talks with the Libyan foreign
minister.
(AP, 2/10/04)
2004 Feb 26, The US lifted a
long-standing ban on travel to Libya after Moammar Gadhafi's government
affirmed that it was responsible for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103
in 1988.
(AP, 2/26/04)
2004 Mar 5, Libya acknowledged
stockpiling 44,000 pounds of mustard gas and disclosed the location of
a production plant in a declaration submitted to the world's chemical
weapons watchdog.
(AP, 3/5/04)
2004 Mar 25, British PM Tony Blair
and Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi greeted each other with smiles
and handshakes in a meeting that marked a major step back into the
international mainstream for the North African state.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Apr 18, In Libya Moammar
Gadhafi called for the abolition of Libya's three decade-old
exceptional courts and other strict laws criticized by human rights
groups.
(AP, 4/18/04)
2004 Apr 27, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi arrived in Brussels, his first trip to Europe in 15 years.
Gadhafi sought "full normalization" of relations and entry to the aid
and trade program the EU runs with countries around the Mediterranean,
including Israel.
(AP, 4/27/04)
2004 May 6, A Libyan court
sentenced five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor to death on
charges they intentionally infected some 393 children with the AIDS
virus as part of an experiment to find a cure. 9 Libyan health workers
were acquitted. Under Libyan law, death sentences generate an automatic
60-day period for appeal.
(AP, 5/6/04)(SSFC, 6/6/04, E3)
2004 May 13, Libya agreed to halt
military trade with North Korea, Syria and Iran.
(WSJ, 5/14/04, p.A1)
2004 May 28, Malaysia issued a
detention order for Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan businessman, on
charges that in 2002 he brought 7 Libyan technicians to Malaysia to be
trained to operate machines to produce centrifuge parts for Libya’s
nuclear weapons program. Tahir was a key associate of Abdul Qadeer
Khan, former head of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program.
(WSJ, 6/4/04, p.A10)
2004 Jun 16, Libyan Arab Airline
announced plans to spend a billion dollars over the next decade to buy
22 new aircraft, ranging from 14-seaters to jets with a capacity of 350
seats.
(AP, 6/16/04)
2004 Jun 28, America resumed
direct diplomatic ties with Libya after a 24-year break.
(USAT, 6/29/04, p.12A)(AP, 6/28/05)
2004 Jul 4, It was reported that
Libya's state-owned Tam Oil Co has bought the Niger unit of US oil
major ExxonMobil Corp, in the first such deal following an end to US
sanctions on Tripoli.
(AP, 7/4/04)
2004 Jul 30, Abdurahman Alamoudi
pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to moving cash from Libya and
involvement in a plot to assassinate Saudi Prince Abdullah.
(SFC, 7/31/04, p.A3)
2004 Aug 10, Libya agreed to pay
$35 million to the non-US victims of the 1986 Berlin disco bombing.
Libya's Kadhafi Foundation, which negotiated the terms of a
compensation deal for victims of the bombing, demanded compensation
from the United States for subsequent air strikes against the north
African country.
(AP, 8/10/04)(WSJ, 8/11/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 3, Libya signed an
agreement to pay a total of $35 million US in compensation for 168
non-U.S. victims of a 1986 Berlin disco bombing.
(AP, 9/3/04)
2004 Sep 19, President George W.
Bush has decided to lift sanctions against Libya, which he expects to
trigger release of more than $1 billion US to families of Pan Am 103
victims.
(AP, 9/20/04)
2004 Sep 22, The European Union
agreed in principle to lift an arms embargo on Libya after pressure
from Italy.
(AP, 9/22/04)
2004 Oct 10, Libyan officials said
police have arrested 17 non-Libyans suspected of being al-Qaida members
who entered this North African country illegally.
(AP, 10/11/04)
2004 Oct 11, The European Union
ended 11 years of sanctions against Libya and eased an arms embargo to
reward the North African country for giving up plans to develop weapons
of mass destruction.
(AP, 10/11/04)
2004 Oct 14, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder arrived in Libya for an official visit during which
he is to hold talks with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
(AP, 10/14/04)
2004 Oct 15, German Chancellor
Gerhard Schroeder and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi clashed over Iraq
during their first-ever meeting in Tripoli while German business
leaders touted for business in the oil-rich former pariah state.
Schroeder praised the reforms of Muammar Gaddafi and invited the Libyan
leader to visit Germany.
(AP, 10/15/04)(Reuters, 10/15/04)
2004 Nov 1, Libya’s PM Shukri
Ghanem said he intends to abolish some five billion dollars worth of
subsidies on electricity, fuel and basic food items in a move to
liberalize the economy.
(AFP, 11/1/04)
2004 Nov 24, President Jacques
Chirac arrived in Libya in the first ever visit by a French head of
state.
(AP, 11/24/04)
2004 Nov 25, French President
Jacques Chirac set aside years of acrimony over the bombing of a French
passenger jet in the 1980s and declared a "new chapter" in relations
with Libya.
(AP, 11/25/04)
2004 Dec 7, Libya listed three
conditions under which it is prepared to drop charges against five
Bulgarian nurses condemned to death on suspect charges of spreading
AIDS.
(AFP, 12/8/04)
2004 Dec 8, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi
(30), son of leader Moammar Gadhafi, said Libya will soon pass new laws
that limit capital punishment to a small number of crimes. Saif was
currently enrolled in a doctoral program in governance at the London
School of Economics.
(SFC, 12/9/04, p.A3)(SSFC, 9/23/07, p.A22)
2004 Dec 14, PM Shukri Ghanem said
Libya is planning to open up its banking sector to Arab investors and
is to privatize two major government banks.
(AP, 12/14/04)
2004 Dec 15, Libya said its
Central Bank has withdrawn $1 billion of assets which had been frozen
for almost two decades in the United States on Washington's orders.
(Reuters, 12/15/04)
2004 Dec 19, Canada’s PM Paul
Martin met Moammar Gadhafi, the latest in a string of world leaders to
visit Tripoli following the Libyan strongman's renunciation of
terrorism. Martin said Canadian construction company SNC-Lavalin has
won a $1 billion contract to help build a major water distribution
system in Libya.
(AP, 12/19/04)(Reuters, 12/19/04)
2004 Dec 22, Saudi Arabia
announced it was withdrawing its ambassador to Libya and ordered out
Libya's envoy in response to reports that Tripoli plotted to
assassinate the Saudi crown prince.
(AP, 12/22/04)
2004 Malawi Pres. Bingu wa
Mutharika closed the country’s embassy in Libya soon after his election.
(AFP, 12/23/07)
2005 Jan 4, Polish PM Marek Belka
arrived in Tripoli for a two-day visit that will include talks on
cooperation in the oil sector and a meeting with Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi.
(AFP, 1/5/05)
2005 Jan 29, Libya granted its
first oil exploration licenses in over four decades, awarding 15
permits to foreign companies, with US companies taking the lion's
share. PM Shukri Ghanem said Libya has opted for a policy of open
communication with total transparence."
(AP, 1/29/05)
2005 Feb 8, Officials said Italian
real estate services company Norman 95 has won a 300-million-euro
(384-million-dollar) contract to develop a luxury holiday resort on the
Libyan coast.
(AFP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 11, The US State
Department said Libyan diplomats can travel freely in the US.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 18, Libya refused to
extend the deadline of the Lockerbie compensation deal in a possible
bid to pressure Washington to drop it from the U.S. list of state
sponsors of terrorism.
(AP, 2/19/05)
2005 Feb 19, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi and Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak backed an African solution to
the crisis in Sudan's Darfur region during 2 rounds of talks in Cairo.
(AFP, 2/19/05)
2005 Mar 3, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi issued a call for economic liberalization in the North African
state.
(AP, 3/3/05)
2005 May 17, Eritrean President
Issaias Afeworki met with Sudan Pres. Omar al-Beshir in Tripoli, Libya.
Beshir demanded that Eritrea refrain from harboring armed Sudanese
opposition and stops offering assistance to that opposition.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 21, In Libya reporter
Daif al-Ghazal (32) was taken from the northern city of Benghazi by
armed men and taken to an unknown location. His body was found a week
later.
(AP, 6/5/05)
2005 May 23, Morocco's king pulled
out of the first North African summit in more than a decade, over
Algeria's latest comments in a long-running dispute over independence
for Western Sahara. Moroccan King Mohammed VI will be represented at
the two-day summit in Tripoli, Libya, by Morocco's foreign minister,
Mohamed Benaissa.
(AP, 5/23/05)
2005 May 28, Bulgarian President
Georgi Parvanov flew Tripoli to meet with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi,
days before a Libyan court rules on the appeal of five Bulgarian nurses
sentenced to death over an AIDS-tainted blood scandal.
(Reuters, 5/27/05)
2005 Jun 7, A Libyan court
acquitted 9 police officers and a doctor accused of torturing six
foreign medics sentenced to death for allegedly infecting children with
HIV.
(AP, 6/8/05)
2005 Jul 4, In Libya Moammar
Gadhafi called on African nations to stop "begging" during the opening
of an African summit attended by more than 50 leaders from this
crisis-wracked continent. African Union (AU) chairman Olusegun Obasanjo
called on rich nations to provide "massive" financial help rather than
sympathy in its fight against poverty at their summit in Scotland this
week. UN Sec-Gen. Kofi Annan announced the creation of a fund to
promote democratic institutions and practices around the world, an idea
first proposed by the Pres. Bush in Sep 2004.
(AP, 7/4/05)(AP, 7/5/05)
2005 Aug 17, Libya called on the
Bulgarian government to negotiate a payment to win amnesty for five
Bulgarian medics and a Palestinian sentenced to death for allegedly
infecting 400 children with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 8/18/05)
2005 Aug 20, Libya will free 131
political prisoners, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood, said
Saif al-Islam, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who heads a
foundation dedicated to improving the country's image.
(AP, 8/21/05)
2005 Sep 1, Libyan authorities
pardoned 1,675 Libyan and foreign prisoners serving time for minor
crimes to mark the 36th anniversary of the revolution, which brought
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to power.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 17, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice told Libya the US was committed to closer relations
with its former enemy, which promised to work harder to fight terrorism.
(AP, 9/17/05)
2005 Sep 28, President George W.
Bush waived some defense export restrictions on Libya to allow U.S.
companies to participate in destroying Tripoli's chemical weapons and
to refurbish eight transport planes.
(Reuters, 9/28/05)
2005 Oct 2, Libya awarded 44 oil
exploration permits to predominantly Asian and European companies after
a first batch was awarded earlier this year mainly to American firms.
(AFP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 2, Portuguese Prime
Minister Jose Socrates met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi in Tripoli, as
Libya continues its bid to warm relations with the West.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 17, Libyan Foreign
Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgam rejected a call by US President George W.
Bush for Tripoli to spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses sentenced
to death for infecting hundreds of Libyan children with the AIDS virus.
(AP, 10/17/05)
2005 Dec 23, Bulgaria and Libya
agreed to set up a special fund for AIDS-infected children in Libya,
where five Bulgarian nurses face the death penalty after being
convicted of causing the infections.
(AP, 12/23/05)
2005 Dec 25, Libya's Supreme Court
scrapped death sentences against five Bulgarian nurses and a
Palestinian doctor and ordered a retrial of the cases which have harmed
Tripoli's efforts to build ties with the West.
(Reuters, 12/25/05)
2005 Dec 29, Three U.S. oil
companies said they will end a 19-year absence in Libya and pay $1.83
billion to resume oil production.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2006 Jan 2, More than 130 Libyan
political prisoners, mostly members of the banned opposition Muslim
Brotherhood group, started a hunger strike in a Tripoli prison, saying
the government broke its promise to release them.
(AP, 1/3/06)
2006 Jan 21, The families of 426
HIV-infected Libyan children asked for $12 million in compensation for
each child as part of efforts to resolve the case of five Bulgarian
nurses and a Palestinian doctor charged with intentionally infecting
the children.
(AP, 1/22/06)
2006 Jan 27, Libya said it is
heading toward allowing private newspapers, radio and television news
in what has been a state-controlled media environment for more than 30
years.
(AFP, 1/27/06)
2006 Feb 17, In Libya 11 people
were killed or wounded during a riot at the Italian consulate when
police firing bullets and tear gas tried to contain more than 1,000
demonstrators hurling rocks and bottles. The Libyans were angry over
caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AFP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 18, Libya suspended Nasr
al-Mabrouk, its interior minister, citing an "excessive use of force"
in riots the day before that left at least 10 people dead in the
bloodiest protest yet against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons roiling the
Muslim world.
(AFP, 2/18/06)
2006 Feb 18, Italy's Reforms
Minister Roberto Calderoli resigned following deadly clashes in Libya
over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that he had made into T-shirts
and wore on state television.
(AP, 2/18/06)
2006 Mar 2, Libya released all 84
jailed members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood movement who had been
held since the late 1990s.
(AFP, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 5, State TV said Libya
had named a new prime minister, Baghdadi Mahmudi, as part of a major
cabinet reshuffle. Mahmudi replaced former premier Shukri Ghanem, who
had held the post since 2003. Ghanem would no longer be part of the
cabinet but would head the state-owned Libya National Oil.
(AFP, 3/5/06)
2006 Mar 20, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi said Saddam Hussein should still be considered Iraq's legal
president and the current government illegitimate as it was elected
under an occupation regime.
(AFP, 3/20/06)
2006 Mar 21, A Kadhafi Foundation
official said Libya is to return properties confiscated in the
mid-1970s and pay compensation to their former owners, under a cabinet
decree.
(AFP, 3/21/06)
2006 Apr 15, In Libya US singer
Lionel Richie jived and rocked for an adoring audience in a concert to
mark the 20th anniversary of a US raid on the North African country.
Libya renewed a demand that Washington apologize and pay compensation.
(AP, 4/15/06)(Reuters, 4/16/06)
2006 May 10, Taiwan's President
Chen Shui-bian made a surprise visit to Libya, after he turned down an
offer to make a refueling stop in Alaska in an apparent sign of
diplomatic pique.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 15, The United States
restored full diplomatic ties with Libya, rewarding the longtime pariah
nation for scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programs.
(Reuters, 5/15/06)
2006 May 17, In Libya Venezuela's
anti-American president was given a warm welcome in Tripoli by Col.
Moammar Gadhafi. Chavez and Gadhafi planned to discuss "social programs
based on oil revenues."
(AP, 5/17/06)
2006 Jul 11, State Department
official Paula Dobriansky held talks with Libyan PM Baghdadi Mahmudi
and announced that the US has lifted sanctions on Libyan air transport.
(AFP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 15, US Middle East envoy
David Welch flew into Tripoli for talks with Libyan officials on
strengthening economic and financial ties between the two countries.
(AFP, 7/16/06)
2006 Sep 2, A small boat of
African migrants from Eritrea was intercepted off the coast of Sicily.
They said eight people died during their grueling trip. They had left
from Libya 10-12 days earlier.
(AP, 9/3/06)
2006 Sep 14, Libya's population
grew by 1.8% per year to 5.3 million in 2006 from 1995. A rare
government census showed that Libya had also cut its illiteracy rate to
11.9% from 19% a decade ago.
(Reuters, 9/14/06)
2006 Oct 10, The government of
Libya reached an agreement with One Laptop per Child, an American
nonprofit group, to provide inexpensive laptop computers to all of its
schoolchildren. The $250 million deal would provide the nation with 1.2
million computers, a server in each school, a team of technical
advisers, satellite internet service and other infrastructure.
(AP, 10/11/06)
2006 Oct 16, Egypt's President
Hosni Mubarak and Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi held talks on how to
resolve the Darfur crisis in Sudan without intervention from outside
Africa.
(AFP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 29, Libya took delivery
of a Boeing jetliner for the first time in 30 years after the privately
owned Buraq Air airline bought six of the US-made aircraft.
(AFP, 10/28/06)
2006 Nov 5, In Libya Idrees
Mohammed Boufayed (49), a vocal critic of Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi's regime, was detained after being summoned to the internal
security agency. The doctor, who had lived in Switzerland for 16 years,
returned from exile in September to develop the National Union for
Reform opposition party he founded 18 months ago.
(AFP, 12/4/06)
2006 Nov 15, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi received assurances from German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier that Berlin would work to bolster ties with Tripoli when it
assumes the EU presidency next year.
(AFP, 11/15/06)
2006 Nov 21, Arab and African
leaders in Libya agreed to work together to end the crisis in the
Darfur region of Sudan.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Dec 11, The Hague-based
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said it has
granted the US and Russia a five-year extension to the 2007 deadline
for destroying their chemical weapon stockpiles. The Chemicals Weapons
Convention which went into effect in April 1997. Extensions were also
granted to India and Libya as well as one country that requested
anonymity.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 19, A Libya court
convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of
deliberately infecting 400 children with HIV and sentenced them to
death, despite scientific evidence the youngsters had the virus before
the medical workers came to Libya. The verdict, which will be
automatically referred to Libya's Supreme Court, drew quick
condemnation from European nations. The six later had their death
sentences commuted, and were transferred to Bulgaria, where they were
pardoned and set free.
(AP, 12/19/06)(AP, 12/19/07)
2006 Dec 24, Chad's president and
the leader of a rebel faction that tried to oust him earlier this year
signed a peace accord in Libya, but other Chadian insurgents dismissed
the deal and vowed to fight on.
(Reuters, 12/24/06)
2007 Jan 25, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi chaired a meeting of African presidents and other top officials
to prepare for an African Union summit as conflicts rage on the
continent.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 29, Libya will not
execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor sentenced to
death last month, the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said in a
newspaper interview, calling their trial "unfair."
(AP, 1/29/07)
2007 Feb 2, Abdoulaye Miskine, the
head of one of the Central African Republic's main rebel groups, inked
in Libya a peace deal described as "historic" by the government. Under
the deal, which CAR's other main rebel factions are expected to sign up
to, there will be an immediate ceasefire and Miskine's rebels will be
integrated into civilian life or absorbed into the army. Rebel
prisoners are to be freed.
(AFP, 2/3/07)
2007 Feb 12, Police conducted
raids across northern Italy, breaking up a leftist militant group that
was allegedly planning kidnappings or kneecappings of victims to
finance its plots. The group traced back to the Red Brigades. Police
said they arrested 15 suspects accused of belonging to the
Politico-military Communist Party (PCPM) in Milan, Turin, Padua and
other northern Italian cities. Police in 7 locations across Italy
arrested 17 men, including four alleged arms traffickers: Massimo
Bettinotti (39), Gianluca Squarzolo (39), Ermete Moretti (55), and
Serafino Rossi (64). A 5th member, Vittorio Dordi, was believed to be
in Congo, apparently involved in the diamond trade. The luggage of
Squarzolo had yielded the original clue to the arms deal. They were
involved in a $64 million deal negotiated with Libyan officials for
some 500,000 Chinese-made assault rifles. Iraqi and Italian partners
had haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic
weapons into Iraq.
(AP, 2/12/07)(Econ, 2/17/07, p.54)(AP, 8/13/07)(WSJ,
12/13/07, p.A18)(AP, 4/12/08)
2007 Feb 21, At a regional meeting
in Libya the leaders of Sudan and Chad said they agreed to redouble
efforts to end violence spilling over their border from Darfur.
(Reuters, 2/21/07)
2007 Feb 25, It was reported that
Libya, 30 years after officially proclaiming itself socialist, is
gradually opening up its banking system with a string of privatizations
in the works and the establishment of foreign banks. In late January,
the Central Bank of Libya announced its intention to sell a minority
stake in one of the north African country's five state-owned commercial
banks, Sahara Bank, to a "leading international financial institution."
(AFP, 2/25/07)
2007 Mar 2, Moammar Gadhafi said
in an unusual debate that it was time for his long-isolated nation to
open up to the world and that one day Libya won't need him as leader.
Still, he insisted that the ruling ideology he has entrenched here for
three decades is superior to Western democracy.
(AP, 3/2/07)
2007 Apr 4, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi urged Africa to form a unified continental army to defend its
interests. He said former colonial powers should pay compensation for
the raw materials they had extracted.
(Reuters, 4/4/07)
2007 Apr 7, Libya’s
foreign-exchange reserves were estimated at $56 billion. The population
was reported to be about 5.6 million.
(Econ, 4/7/07, p.46)
2007 Apr 20, Libya's National Oil
Corporation and US firm Dow Chemical announced a joint venture to
operate and expand the Ras Lanuf petrochemical complex in Libya.
(AFP, 4/20/07)
2007 May 12, Yemen said it was
recalling its ambassadors to Iran and Libya over what it sees as their
support for Shi'ite Muslim rebels involved in bloody clashes with
government forces. The government of Sunni-dominated Yemen accused the
rebels of seeking to oust its secular administration and install
Islamist rule.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 27, A Libyan court
acquitted 5 Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medic of charges of
slandering policemen by protesting that their confessions had been
extracted under torture.
(AFP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 29, Libya said it will
sign a 900 million dollar exploration deal with energy giant BP, which
plans to return after a 33 year absence. British PM Tony Blair arrived
in Libya and welcomed improved relations as oil companies from both
countries signed a major deal.
(AP, 5/29/07)
2007 Jun 2, The Comoros and Guinea
joined the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD) at a summit of
the nine-year-old African grouping in Libya, raising its membership to
25 countries.
(AP, 6/2/07)
2007 Jun 3, In Libya African
leaders sought to reconcile differences between neighbors Chad and
Sudan over Darfur and boost Somalia's embattled transitional government
at a regional summit.
(AFP, 6/3/07)
2007 Jun 6, Los Angeles based
Colony Capital LLC, private investment firm, said it has agreed to buy
a controlling stake in Libyan state-owned Tamoil in a deal that valued
the Italy-based refiner at 4 billion euros ($5.4 billion), double
earlier estimates. Colony, founded in 1991 by Thomas Barrack, focuses
on real estate-related assets, securities, and operating companies. In
March, 2008, the deal was reported to be off.
(Reuters, 6/6/07)(Reuters, 3/3/08)
2007 Jun 8, It was reported that
Libya, citing cost and liability concerns, has informed the United
States of plans to back out of a contract to destroy its mustard gas
stocks as promised under a landmark 2003 agreement.
(Reuters, 6/8/07)
2007 Jul 8, Libya invited
international tenders for exploration of its onshore and offshore gas
fields covering an area almost the size of Scotland.
(AP, 7/9/07)
2007 Jul 10, The Gaddafi
Foundation charity said it has reached an accord with the families of
HIV-infected Libyan children that ends the crisis of the Bulgarian
nurses sentenced to death for infecting them.
(Reuters, 7/10/07)
2007 Jul 11, Libya's Supreme Court
upheld the death sentences of five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian
doctor convicted of infecting more than 400 children with the AIDS
virus. But the verdict may not be the final word in the case.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2007 Jul 15, A Libyan foundation
confirmed that families of Libyan children infected with AIDS have
accepted compensation topping 460 million dollars, which could lead to
a death sentence on six foreign medics being lifted.
(AFP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 15, UN and African Union
representatives gathered in Tripoli to evaluate Darfur.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 17, Libya's foreign
minister said the death sentences for five Bulgarian nurses and a
Palestinian doctor accused of infecting hundreds of Libyan children
with HIV have been commuted to life in prison. The ruling came after
the families of the children each received $1 million and agreed to
drop their demand for the execution of the six.
(AP, 7/17/07)
2007 Jul 24, Five Bulgarian nurses
and a Palestinian doctor, sentenced to life in prison in Libya for
allegedly infecting children with HIV, came home to Bulgaria and were
greeted with tears and hugs, and a presidential pardon that allowed
them to walk free after 8 1/2 years behind bars. French President
Nicolas Sarkozy said Qatar mediated the release and hinted the Gulf
country may have had a broader role in resolving the crisis.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 25, French President
Nicolas Sarkozy headed for talks with Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, a
day after the release of six foreign medics, in a signal of normalized
ties between Europe and Tripoli. France and Libya signed a memorandum
of understanding to build a Libyan nuclear reactor for water
desalination and clinched a raft of other deals.
(AP, 7/25/07)(AFP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 28, Libya said the Czech
Republic, Qatar and Bulgaria contributed to an international fund to
support hundreds of children who contracted HIV at a Libyan hospital in
the 1990s. Libya also denounced a decision by Bulgaria's president to
pardon six medics from life jail terms in an AIDS case as a "betrayal"
and an "illegal procedure."
(Reuters, 7/28/07)(AFP, 7/28/07)
2007 Aug 2, A Libyan official said
that Moammar Gadhafi's long-isolated country has signed contracts worth
$405 million with French companies for missiles and communications
equipment.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 2, Bulgaria said it had
decided to write off Libya's communist-era debt as a contribution to an
international fund for the victims of an AIDS epidemic blamed by
Tripoli on six Bulgarian medics.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Sep 3, Bulgaria donated $56.6
million in Soviet-era debt owned by Libya as its contribution to a deal
that led to the release of 6 medics convicted of infecting Libyan
children with HIV.
(AP, 9/3/07)
2007 Oct 16, Libya, a former
pariah state condemned by the U.S. as a sponsor of terrorism, won a
seat on the UN Security Council without opposition from the Bush
administration.
(AP, 10/16/07)
2007 Nov 3, Al-Qaida's No. 2
figure harshly criticized Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in a new audio
tape, accusing him of being an enemy of Islam and threatening a wave of
attacks against the North African country because it improved relations
with the US.
(AP, 11/3/07)
2007 Nov 11, Libya began enforcing
new regulations demanding an Arabic translation of passports for
visitors. A Libyan aviation official said the measures were in response
to a decision to prevent Libyans with visas for the EU's Schengen
border-free zone from entering certain European countries, notably
France and Britain.
(AFP, 11/12/07)
2007 Nov 17, Mauritanian President
Sidi Ould Sheikh Abdallahi met Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at the
start of visit to Tripoli aimed at boosting relations after years of
tension.
(AFP, 11/17/07)
2007 Dec 10, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi arrived on his first visit to France in 34 years, sparking
protests from rights groups and criticism from the government's own
human rights minister. Gadhafi got straight to business, cutting $14.7
billion in deals for arms and nuclear reactors on his first official
visit to the West since renouncing terrorism and atomic weapons.
(AFP, 12/10/07)(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 10, Petro-Canada,
Canada's third largest oil and gas company, signed a $7 billion deal
with Libya's state-run National Oil Corp. to invest in exploration in
the North African nation.
(AP, 12/10/07)
2007 Dec 12, Ashraf Juma Hajuj,
the Palestinian-born doctor held with five Bulgarian nurses in a Libyan
prison for over eight years, filed suit in Paris against Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi for torture. The six medics, who always maintained their
innocence, said they were subjected to torture, including beatings,
electric shocks, food and sleep deprivation, and even sexual abuse, in
order to confess to their alleged crime.
(AFP, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 13, In the Philippines
leaders of 2 separatist groups met with Seif al-Islam Khadafy, son of
Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, and said they should be able to resolve
differences that dated back to 1976 when the Moro Islamic Liberation
Front broke from the Moro National Liberation Front.
(SFC, 12/15/07, p.A9)
2007 Dec 16, Spanish construction
group BTP Sacyr Vallehermoso said it had created a joint company with
the Libyan government to bid for infrastructure contracts there.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 23, Media reported that
Malawi has asked Libya to close its mission in Lilongwe. The Mutharika
administration had suspicions that Libya funds Muluzi's United
Democratic Front, which is seeking to unseat Mutharika in elections in
2009.
(AFP, 12/23/07)
2007 Libya’s Col Gadhafi
established the Libyan Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund
with $50 billion slotted for investment.
(WSJ, 5/21/08, p.A14)
2008 Jan 1, Libya took over the
rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in a major step back to
global respectability after decades as a pariah of the West.
(AP, 1/1/08)
2008 Jan 3, Libya's foreign
minister declared an end to confrontation with the US in a rare visit
to Washington by a top Libyan diplomat aimed at cementing ties between
the former foes.
(AP, 1/4/08)
2008 Jan 18, Libya defended plans
to carry out a massive expulsion of illegal immigrants, rejecting
criticism from a human rights group that doing so would violate
international law.
(AP, 1/18/08)
2008 Jan 26, A security chief for
Sunni tribesmen who rose up against al-Qaida in Iraq said the
devastating explosion in northern Iraq was spearheaded by foreign
fighters under the sponsorship of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, son of the
Libyan leader.
(AP, 1/26/08)
2008 Feb 7, Libya’s National Oil
Corp and Indonesia signed a deal for the north African state to supply
the world's most populous Muslim nation with crude oil for the next 20
years.
(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Apr 8, Libyan authorities
released 90 members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a group
with suspected links to al-Qaida, after they renounced violence.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 16, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit as
"historic and strategic" during a state dinner at the Bab Azizia palace.
(AFP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 17, Russian President
Vladimir Putin wrapped up his two-day visit with Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi by writing off $4.5 billion in Libyan debts in exchange for
multibillion-dollar deals for Russian companies.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 May 30, The US State
Department said the US and Libya have agreed to try to resolve
compensation claims from the 1988 Lockerbie bombing and other incidents
Washington views as acts of terrorism by Libya.
(AP, 5/31/08)
2008 Jun 7, A boat carrying 150
African migrants en route to Europe sank off the Libyan coast. The
Libyan authorities later recovered 40 bodies. The Libyan government
informed the Egyptian government of the incident on June 13 because
they believe that 12 of the passengers were Egyptians.
(AFP, 6/16/08)
2008 Jul 15, In Switzerland
Hannibal Kadhafi (32), the son of Libya’s leader, was arrested along
with his wife Aline at a luxury hotel in Geneva after the servants, a
Moroccan and a Tunisian, alleged they had been abused by the couple.
The 2-day detention led to reprisals by Libya. The servants later
dropped their legal complaints after receiving some compensation.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Jul 24, Libya said it will
halt fuel supplies to key oil client Switzerland in the latest reprisal
for last week's brief detention in Geneva of a son of Libyan leader
Moamer Kadhafi.
(AFP, 7/24/08)
2008 Jul 30, Alexander Tsygankov,
a Russian oil executive detained in Libya since last November, was
freed, hours before Russian PM Vladimir Putin was due to host the
country's prime minister.
(Reuters, 7/31/08)
2008 Jul 31, The US Congress
approved legislation that will allow the State Department to settle all
remaining lawsuits against Libya by US terrorism victims.
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Aug 4, President George W.
Bush signed into law legislation paving the way for Libya to pay
hundreds of millions of dollars to compensate US victims of bombing
attacks that Washington blames on Tripoli.
(Reuters, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 13, Bolivia and Libya
agreed to establish diplomatic relations and join efforts to develop
the nations' energy resources.
(AP, 8/13/08)
2008 Aug 14, Libya and the United
States settled all outstanding lawsuits by American victims of
terrorism, clearing the way for the full restoration of diplomatic
relations.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 18, Niger's Tuareg rebel
leader Aghaly ag Alambo said his fighters would lay down their guns
and, together with neighboring Mali's Tuareg rebellion, submit to
mediation by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 21, Seif al-Islam
Gadhafi, the son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, said he will no
longer be involved in politics, defying in a surprise announcement
long-held expectations he was preparing to succeed his father.
(AP, 8/22/08)
2008 Aug 27, Two hijackers, who
commandeered a jetliner from Sudan's Darfur region and diverted it to a
remote desert airstrip in southern Libya, surrendered after a 22-hour
standoff.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Aug 28, Libya announced an
amnesty for more than 3,000 prisoners, including Europeans and
Africans, to mark the 39th anniversary of Moamer Kadhafi's rule.
(AFP, 8/28/08)
2008 Aug 30, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi met in Libya to sign a
"friendship pact." Italy agreed to pay Libya US$5 billion as
compensation for its 30-year occupation of the country, which ended in
1943.
(Reuters, 8/30/08)(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Sep 5, US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice met Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, once reviled as a
"mad dog" by President Reagan, on a historic visit which she said
proved that Washington had no permanent enemies. John Foster Dulles was
the last US Secretary of State to visit Tripoli, in May 1953.
(Reuters, 9/6/08)
2008 Oct 5, The United States
opened a trade office in Libya to boost economic ties with the oil-rich
state.
(AFP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 9, The Libyan oil company
Tamoil said the Libyan government has again decided to halt oil
deliveries to Switzerland.
(AFP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 10, The Libyan news
agency JANA said Libya will withdraw $7 billion of assets in Swiss
banks, cut economic ties with Switzerland and stop supplying it with
oil to protest against poor treatment of Libyan diplomats and
businessmen.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 31, Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, starting his first visit to post-Soviet Russia, planned to
discuss opening a Russian naval base in Libya to counterbalance US
interests in the region.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Oct 31, Pres. Bush signed an
executive order restoring the Libyan government’s immunity from
terror-related lawsuits and dismissing pending compensation cases in
response to Libya’s payment of $1.5 billion into a fund to compensate
the families of victims the 1986 bombing of a German disco and the 1988
Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.
(SFC, 11/1/08, p.A3)
2008 Nov 2, Belarus President
Alexander Lukashenko greeted visiting Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and
said he hopes to boost ties between their countries.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Nov 5, Libya's Moamer Kadhafi
met with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko in his traditional
Bedouin tent during a visit to Kiev expected to focus on energy and
military cooperation.
(AFP, 11/6/08)
2008 Nov 9, A Bahrain-based
Islamic investment bank unveiled plans for a five-billion-dollar energy
sector business hub at Sabratha, Libya.
(AFP, 11/9/08)
2008 Dec 1, The Israeli navy
turned away a Libyan ship heading to Gaza with 3,000 tons of
humanitarian aid, ending the most high-profile effort yet to break a
blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory.
(AP, 12/1/08)
2008 Dec 30, Libya asked oil
companies to slash production by 270,000 barrels per day from Jan. 1,
the latest such reduction by an OPEC member as the producer group
struggles to boost faltering oil prices.
(AP, 12/30/08)
2008 Libya exported some $46
billion worth of oil this year. Its population stood at about 6 million
people.
(Econ, 8/22/09, p.41)
2009 Feb 1, The African Union's
12th summit opened in Ethiopia with an agenda officially focused on
infrastructure development. Leaders set aside the first day to discuss
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's long-standing pet project to establish
a United States of Africa.
(AFP, 2/1/09)(Reuters, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 2, In Ethiopia Libyan
leader Moamer Kadhafi was elected to head the 53-nation African Union
at a summit amid concerns over deadly unrest in Madagascar and a bid to
indict Sudan's president for war crimes.
(AFP, 2/2/09)
2009 Mar 10, Libya released Jamal
al-Haji and Faraj Humaid. They had been sentenced to prison in 2007 for
planning a peaceful demonstration to commemorate protesters who had
died in clashes with police.
(SFC, 3/11/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 26, Sudan's president
Omar al-Bashir visited his third country in four days, this time
touching down in Libya, the latest country to welcome the leader who's
wanted by an international court on war crimes.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 27, An overcrowded boat
packed with migrants capsized in stormy seas off the coast of Libya.
Only 20 survived when the wooden vessel with 257 people on board,
mostly African migrants, including 70 women and two children, both of
whom died, sunk only three hours off Libya.
(AP, 3/31/09)(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Mar 29, A second boat with
about 350 migrants aboard was rescued safely off the coast of Libya.
(AP, 3/31/09)
2009 Mar 30, In Qatar Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi stormed out of an Arab summit after denouncing
the Saudi king and declaring himself "the dean of Arab rulers."
(AP, 3/30/09)
2009 Apr 29, Britain and Libya
ratified a prisoner transfer deal that could potentially allow Abdel
Basset Ali al-Megrahi (57), the man convicted of the Lockerbie
bombings, to serve out the remainder of his sentence in the North
African country.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 May 1, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi held talks with visiting Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari
on the situation in Pakistan and ways of bolstering ties between the
two nations. Pakistan and Libya signed a string of agreements to
bolster economic ties on the sidelines of Zardari’s visit. The
countries also decided to bolster ties in the fields of banking,
health, education, public works and construction.
(AFP, 5/1/09)(AFP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 11, A Libyan newspaper
reported that Ali Mohamed Abdelaziz al Fakhiri (46), also known as Ibn
Sheikh al-Libi, has killed himself in his Libyan jail cell. His
fabricated testimony about al Qaeda was used by the United States to
justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Captured by US-led forces in
Pakistan in the weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Fakhiri
later made up a story about links between al Qaeda and Iraq to avoid
torture while in the custody of Egypt, according to a 2006 US Senate
Intelligence Committee report. Fakhiri was extradited by the US to
Libya in 2006, when Tripoli authorities sentenced him to life
imprisonment. Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri later accused
Libya of torturing to death al Fakhiri.
(Reuters, 5/11/09)(Reuters, 10/4/09)
2009 May 21, Fathi al-Jahmi,
Libyan dissident and human rights activist repeatedly imprisoned in
Libya for defying the country's leader Moammar Gadhafi, died after
being released earlier this month to Jordan. He never regained
consciousness after having slipped into a coma following a stroke on
May 4 in a Libyan jail. He was sentenced to death in 2006 for failing
to recognize Gadhafi's authority, and remained behind bars until his
release to Jordan.
(AP, 5/22/09)
2009 May 26, Libya and Ukraine
signed deals to cooperate in both peaceful civilian nuclear energy and
in defense during a visit by Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko.
(AP, 5/27/09)
2009 Jun 10, Libyan leader Moammar
Gadhafi began his first visit to Italy with a warm embrace from Premier
Silvio Berlusconi, evidence of better ties between the energy-rich
desert nation and its former colonial ruler.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 15, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi sued three Moroccan newspapers for defamation, seeking eight
million euros in damages for "attacks on the dignity of a head of
state."
(AFP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 29, Three Moroccan
newspapers were ordered to pay a total of three million dirhams
(270,000 euros) to Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who had sued them for
writing critical articles.
(AFP, 6/29/09)
2009 Jul 1, In Libya an African
Union summit opened.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 2, African heads of state
meeting in Libya discussed a drastic new decision against the
International Criminal Court that would in practice give Sudan's
president impunity from prosecution for war crimes by the ICC, a draft
document at the AU summit showed. Leaders also struggled to overcome
divisions on a proposed "African government", as Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi pressed for a powerful new continental authority.
(AP, 7/2/09)(AFP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Libya peacekeepers
in Somalia and the war crimes warrant for Sudan's president dominated
the final day of an African Union summit, after a late-night compromise
on a new regional authority. Africa's leaders agreed to denounce the
International Criminal Court and refuse to extradite Sudan's President
Omar al-Bashir, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity in
Darfur.
(AFP, 7/3/09)(AP, 7/3/09)
2009 Jul 5, It was reported that
Libya suffering an outbreak of bubonic plague and that
neighboring countries, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, were acting
to prevent its spread across the borders.
(SSFC, 7/5/09, p.M3)
2009 Jul 30, A Libyan officials
said Libya and Canada have signed a memorandum of intent on nuclear
power. Since July 2007, Libya has signed three similar agreements with
France, Russia and Ukraine.
(AFP, 7/30/09)
2009 Aug 13, Scottish officials
said they were considering early release for the Lockerbie bomber,
leading to sharp debate among victims' relatives in the US and Britain
over whether he should be allowed to return home to Libya. British
media said Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi could soon be freed on
compassionate grounds because he is terminally ill with cancer.
(AP, 8/13/09)
2009 Aug 14, In Libya a delegation
of US senators led by John McCain met with Libya's leader to discuss
the possible delivery of non-lethal defense equipment.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Aug 20, Scottish officials
freed Abdel Baset al-Megrahi (57), former Libyan intelligence agent and
alleged Lockerbie bomber (Dec 21, 1988), on compassionate grounds after
eight years in jail allowing him to go home to Libya to die. Al-Megrahi
has terminal prostate cancer and has been given less than three months
to live.
(AP, 8/20/09)
2009 Aug 20, Swiss President
Hans-Rudolf Merz and Libyan PM al-Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi signed an
accord pledging to restore relations between the two countries and to
have Hannibal Gadhafi July 15, 2008, arrest examined by a joint
arbitration tribunal in London. The next day Merz defended his apology
to Libya for the arrest of Moammar Gadhafi's son, saying it was the
only way to secure the release of two Swiss citizens detained by
Tripoli.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 30, Libyan leader Moamer
Kadhafi and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi laid the foundation stone for
an ambitious highway stretching along the entire Libyan coast.
(AFP, 8/30/09)
2009 Aug 31, African leaders
gathered in Libya for a special summit to discuss the continent's
trouble spots, on the eve of celebrations to mark 40 years of Moamer
Kadhafi's rule.
(AFP, 8/31/09)
2009 Sep 6, British PM Gordon
Brown said he would support compensation claims against Libya by
families of IRA victims who say Tripoli helped to arm the guerrillas.
(Reuters, 9/6/09)
2009 Sep 18, Canada-based oil
producer Verenex Energy Inc. agreed to be sold to the Libyan Investment
Authority for about $314.1 million Canadian ($293.7 million) in cash,
after a better deal with a Chinese firm fell through.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Venezuela Pres.
Hugo Chavez and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi called for a new global
definition of terrorism. Meeting a day after the end of a summit of
African and South American leaders in Venezuela, the two men signed a
declaration urging a global conference be held to sketch out new terms
defining terrorism.
(Reuters, 9/28/09)
2009 Oct 12, In Italy Mohamed Game
(35), a Libyan, hurled a home-made bomb at the Santa Barbara police
barracks in Milan, losing his hand from the blast and slightly wounding
a policeman on duty outside. Game had lived in Italy since 2003 and had
never been a suspect. Italian police detained two more suspects and
found a large quantity of bomb-making chemicals during overnight
searches.
(AFP, 10/12/09)(AP, 10/13/09)
2009 Oct 15, Libya freed 88
Islamists with Al-Qaeda links from Abu Slim prison in Tripoli. Lawyers
said "45 members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and 43
members of other jihadist groups were freed thanks to the efforts of
the Islamic Foundation," in a joint statement with the Foundation,
headed by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's son Seif al-Islam.
(AFP, 10/15/09)
2009 Oct 16, Libya's Oea newspaper
said Saif al-Islam, the reform-minded son of Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, has been named overall coordinator of a grouping of the
country's most influential tribal, political and business leaders.
(Reuters, 10/16/09)
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