On April 15, 1986, “President [Ronald] Reagan ordered a series of air strikes on Libya. U.S. intelligence indicated that strongman Moammar Kadafi had sponsored a terrorist attack on a German nightclub popular with off-duty American servicemen, in which one soldier had been killed and more than sixty wounded. The United States responded with 200 aircraft […]
4/15/1986
On April 5, 1986, “a bomb tore through a discotheque in West Berlin, killing an American soldier. The Reagan administration quickly identified Muammar Gadhafi of Libya as a sponsor of the attack and warned that Libya was encouraging follow-up attacks on American targets. Ten days later [April 15, 1986], more than 100 American bombs rained […]
4/8/1986
In an April 8, 1986, article in The Washington Post, a Reagan Administration aide commented on the potential misuse of Stinger missiles sold to the mujadhadeen. ” ‘Some of these guys are a lot closer politically, religiously, and philosophically to [Iran’s Ayatollah Ruholla] Khomeini than they are to us,’ the aide said. ‘There is concern […]
2/26/1986
On February 26, 1986, “the Reagan administration decided to ship in Stinger ground-to-air missiles [to the mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan]; it would take another seven months for rebels to be trained, equipped, and effective in shooting down Soviet helicopters. Russian officials later claimed that the new weapon actually slowed the troop withdrawal. They […]
2/25/1986
“On February 25, 1986, [head of the Soviet Union Mikhail] Gorbachev told the Politburo that Afghanistan had turned into a ‘bleeding wound’ and that troops would depart in a phased withdrawal–half by the end of 1987 and the rest in 1988.” – Roy Gutman, How We Missed the Story, Page 22 […]
2/1/1986
The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) “was established under President [Ronald] Reagan, on February 1, 1986, to combat a wave of terror attacks backed by Iran and Syria. It was supposed to break down the bureaucratic barriers among CIA operations, which were divided into Near East, Middle East, and Africa stations.” – Richard Miniter, Losing Bin […]
1/15/1986
In January 1986, “with [President] Ronald Reagan’s authorization, [CIA Director William] Casey created the Counterterrorism Center [CTC]. [CIA officer Duane] Clarridge was chosen as its chief. He had a support staff of two hundred CIA officers, mostly analysts, and ten people loaned from other agencies. CTC had no field agents, however, and had to rely […]
12/27/1985
“Saddam Hussein didn’t just sympathize with terrorists. He had paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers and given sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal, who led attacks that killed nineteen people at an Israeli airline’s ticket counters in Rome and Vienna [on December 27, 1985], and Abu Abbas, who hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille […]
8/30/1985
“On August 30 [1985] Israel sold more than five hundred U.S.-origin TOW missiles (Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-command) to Iran.” – Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud, Page 72 […]
6/11/1985
“…secretly, the White House was…preparing to send weapons to Iran in an arms-for-hostages deal. On June 11, 1985, just two days after Thomas Sutherland, a dean at American University in Beirut [Lebanon], was kidnapped, the National Security Council drafted a presidential directive advocating that the United States help Iran obtain selected weapons. The opposing faction […]