I remember this as though it were yesterday.
My family was checking into our condo on Maui, we turned on the television and the Gipper had attacked al-Qaddafi.
On April 14, 1986, the United States launches air strikes against Libya in retaliation for the Libyan sponsorship of terrorism against American troops and citizens.
In keeping with a long-held policy at this site, “The only good jihadist is a dead jihadist.”
And of course, we have music for that. (Source)
Nope, we just don’t love them any more!
Five military targets and “terrorism centers” were hit, including the headquarters of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. (Source)
Jihadist’s once again can expect this sort of offensive attack now that we have President Trump sitting in the Oval Office as our conutries, commander-in-chief.
Following Libyan threats against American naval ships in the Gulf of Sidra and the bombing of German Disco that killed a US serviceman, Reagan ordered the bombing of Mohammar Qaddafi’s headquarters in Libya
The Long War Journal
September 25, 2017
The raid, which began shortly before 7 p.m. EST (2 a.m., April 15 in Libya), involved more than 100 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft and was over within an hour.
Earlier today, the Islamic State released a video showing its men operating in Libya’s desert and elsewhere in the country. It was the first such video in months.
American forces launched “six precision airstrikes” on an Islamic State camp in Libya on Sept. 22, according to US Africa Command (AFRICOM). The bombings reportedly killed 17 jihadists and destroyed three vehicles at a “desert camp.”
“The camp was located approximately 150 miles southeast of Sirte,” AFRICOM said in a statement today.
“The camp was used by ISIS to move fighters in and out of the country; stockpile weapons and equipment; and to plot and conduct attacks.”
The airstrikes are the first by the US government in Libya since January.
The self-declared caliphate lost its safe haven in Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast, late last year.
At the height of its power, the group considered Sirte to be one of the three most important cities under its control, ranking behind only Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria in terms of prominence.
A US-backed coalition pushed the jihadists out Mosul earlier this year and they have lost substantial ground inside Raqqa as well.
Between Aug. 1 and Dec. 19, 2016, AFRICOM conducted “495 precision airstrikes” as part of Operation Odyssey Lightning.
The operation, carried out in conjunction with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), successfully dislodged the Islamic State from Sirte after seven months of heavy fighting.
But the victory was costly for the GNA-backed militiamen responsible for the ground assault.
More than 700 GNA-sponsored fighters were reportedly killed and thousands more wounded.
See the entire article below.
In Jan. 2017, the US bombed two Islamic State training camps south of Sirte, citing the presence of the group’s “external plotters.” The Defense Department estimated that dozens of jihadists were killed. Subsequent reporting revealed that the “external plotters” were connected to attacks in Europe, including the Dec. 19 Berlin Christmas market attack and possibly the May 22 Manchester Arena bombing.
Since losing Sirte, the Islamic State has been trying to regroup inside Libya.
In August, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi’s loyalists raided a checkpoint in the Jufra region, which is south of Sirte in the middle of Libya. Amaq News Agency, a propaganda arm of the so-called caliphate, claimed that 21 members of General Khalifa Haftar’s “militia” were “killed and wounded” during the attack. Haftar leads the Libyan National Army (LNA), which has fought the Islamic State’s men in several areas.
In early September, the jihadists carried out a series of small-scale operations on the road between Sirte and Nawfaliya, a town they seized in 2015. They attacked forces loyal to the LNA and set up checkpoints to extort payments from travelers. Their mini-surge along the coastline was celebrated in an issue of Al Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter. (A screen shot from Al Naba can be seen on the right.)
Then, earlier today, Wilayah Barqah (an Islamic State “province” in Libya) released a 17-minute video advertising the group’s continued presence inside the country. The footage contains scenes of the aforementioned checkpoints, as well as other operations. Some of the footage documents the jihadists’ monkish life in Libya’s deserts.
According to the State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2016, the so-called caliphate lost a significant number of its fighters during the battle for Sirte. Yet, several thousand of its men were either stationed elsewhere or survived the siege.
“Although more than 1,700 ISIS terrorists were killed during the Sirte counterterrorism operations,” the State Department reported, “many members of the terrorist organization fled to Libya’s western and southern deserts, abroad, or into neighboring urban centers.”
State also cited reports saying that Baghdadi’s organization had “as many as 6,000 fighters in its ranks” as of early 2016 — that is, several months before the US began its air campaign in Sirte in Aug. 2016. The number of jihadists fighting under its banner swelled between 2015 and 2016, as the Islamic State “doubled its presence in the country” during that time.
Taken at face value, therefore, the State Department’s report suggested that approximately 4,300 members of the Islamic State’s Libyan arm were not killed during the operation to free Sirte from the jihadists’ grip. It is not clear how many of these men are stationed in Libya, or fled elsewhere. Nor is it known how many were killed in other operations inside Libya since then.
Foggy Bottom also warned that the Islamic State has cadres sprinkled throughout the country.
“At the end of 2016,” Foggy Bottom said, the Islamic State was “no longer in control of any towns in Libya, but its members continued to operate throughout the eastern, southern, and western regions of the country.” The jihadists “also carried out attacks in Tripoli and Benghazi.”
Last December, the Islamic State’s Rumiyah magazine, which is published in multiple languages, carried an interview with Sheikh Abu Hudhayfah al Muhajir, who was identified as the group’s leader in Libya. The “detachments of the mujahidin” are “spread today throughout the deserts of Libya,” Muhajir claimed, and they will make their enemies “taste severe hardship.” He vowed that they “will reclaim the cities and areas once more, by Allah’s power and strength.”
Muhajir was asked about the Islamic State’s strength in “regions outside of Sirte.” He claimed that the number of “mujahid brothers in the Libyan wilayat [province] continue to be…abundant.” Their “covert units are scattered throughout all the cities and regions, and their detachments cruise the deserts both east and west.” Although he exaggerated his followers’ capabilities, there was some truth in Muhajir’s claims.
In its announcement today, AFRICOM noted that both “ISIS and al-Qaeda have taken advantage of ungoverned spaces in Libya to establish sanctuaries for plotting, inspiring and directing terror attacks.” Both groups have used Libyan territory for “recruiting and facilitating the movement of foreign terrorist fighters,” as well as “raising and moving funds to support their operations.”
While the Islamic State has consistently advertised its presence in Libya, however, al Qaeda and its regional branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), have often sought to obscure the extent of their network in North Africa. For instance, the State Department noted in July that AQIM has backed alliances fighting in Benghazi. “In the second half of 2016,” State reported, “AQIM increased its personnel and weapons support to the Benghazi Revolutionary Shura Council [BRSC] and the Benghazi Defense Brigades [BDB].” The BDB has denied links to known terrorist organizations, a claim that the US government clearly doesn’t buy.
THE END
JCscuba
Jim Campbell's 
Gee they killed 17 terrorists in Libya. How many have been killed in Europe using trucks? The West will never win unless it uses the same methods that the terrorists do. When the French did this in Algeria they stomped out the terrorists in three months. It took the usual suspects to tuck in their tails and ask to sureender.
The West will never learn until it is too late.
LikeLike
There does appear to be a new sheriff in town in America’s chain of command. These strikes are a step in the right direction and I do agree that America and its allies need to use a very concentrated attack plan that cuts of the head of the serpent.
It is much better for America to be fighting at the source and keep these Muslims out of America.
Time for Trump to raid and expel all Muslim training camps in America.
Simply Google Muslim Training Camps in America and you will see that this is not a small problem developing right here in America.
LikeLike
Well said Dave, should have been done long before you mentioned it. Tell Mexico and Central America to do the same or they will be visited by drone strikes at night.
LikeLike
I find it ironic how history repeats itself in strange and surprising ways. The late Colonel Qaddafi, wily Bedouin son of the Libyan desert, was born near Sirte in 1942. Not long after his birth, an itinerant fortune-teller predicted he would have a remarkable destiny, which he fulfilled when he led a military coup to dispose of Libyan King Idris of the Senussi Order of Islam, and installed himself as dictator in 1969.
“Brother Colonel” was indeed an eccentric and brutal man. Under the rule of Idris, Libya’s military was trained by the British, whom Qaddafi hated and rejected as “imperialists” although he was later sent to Great Britain for more training where he learned to speak English. Unlike the Islamic crazies running around today, I’ve always believed his long-standing feud with the West was far more political than religious. However, his primary modus operandi was the support of terrorism against the West and Israel because he failed miserably in trying to unite his fellow Arab brethren, like Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and Egypt’s Anwar Sadat through Nasser-inspired pan-Arabism. Qaddafi detested the Saudi Royal family primarily due to their dealings with the western oil companies, although he too was a member of OPEC.
After he overthrew King Idris and established himself as the leader of the Revolutionary Command Council he wrote his infamous “Green Book” based partly on Chairman Mao’s “Red Book” and his own weird philosophies mixing socialism with Islamic beliefs. He still continued hating the West and thumbed his nose at us continually by buying Soviet military hardware and allowing the Russians access to his air bases after kicking out the British and Americans shortly after seizing power. Qaddafi remained a significant menace to the peace and stability of the region and in western Europe until President Ronald Reagan subdued him with the 1986 air raid. The Gipper almost got him too when one of the bombs dropped landed near his Bedouin tent inside the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli. But, as the saying goes, the devil protects his own. Yet, the air raid did managed to scare the hell out of him. He seemed to vanish off the radar. At least no one heard much from him anymore. Yet, acts of terror continued, like the 1988 bombing of a commercial airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland which was later linked to Libya.
When the fake “Arab Spring” started in 2010 with neighboring Tunisia’s government collapsing practically overnight and Egypt’s Mubarak eventually being taken down by the western- backed forces of the Muslim Brotherhood, I knew the old colonel was not going to be taken out without one hell of fight, or, that they would have to kill him to take him out of power and that is exactly what happened to him.
I am convinced that these armed rebel forces could have never accomplished so much so fast in Libya or any place else without the support of western backers. Furthermore, I recall reading an article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper several years ago about a deal made prior to the fake Arab Spring between Qaddafi and the Shell Oil Company, which, according to the piece, “did not go down well with US rivals who felt barred from contact with Libya”.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/aug/30/shell-libyan-gas-oil
I’ve long suspected that the fake Arab Spring never intended to free the citizens of Libya or any other place where Islam has always dominated or influenced the culture. Islam is an anathema to freedom and is being primarily used as a weapon of subjugation against the people and nations of North Africa and the Middle East by the wealthy and powerful global elite. This is also the reason behind the mass exodus of refugees to the West. Another highly orchestrated event. As King Solomon once said, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
LikeLike