Raid Assailed by Arab World; Fears Raised Among Those Allied to U.S.

The U.S. air attack on Libya produced a stream of outrage in the Arab world Tuesday and raised fears among Arabs close to Washington that it may set off a cycle of terrorism in which they are the targets.

The United States was excoriated by Palestinian groups and by Libyan allies Syria and Iran. But there was also little support for the Reagan Administration even from what it considers its close allies in the Arab world. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia all joined in criticizing the attack.

The paradox is that many Arab officials privately acknowledge that they regard Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi with distaste for his disruptive and eccentric policies both at home and abroad. But a military attack against an Arab “brother country” by an outside power, no matter what the reason, invariably causes Arab states to close ranks behind the injured party.

One Arab diplomat suggested Tuesday that the United States seriously miscalculated in permitting an attack on Kadafi’s barracks residence in Tripoli. News agency reports from the Libyan capital have said Kadafi’s adopted infant daughter was killed and two of his sons were wounded in the attack.

“You know, Kadafi is essentially a Bedouin, and for him there can have been no greater offense than to wound his children,” the diplomat said. “Now he must at all costs retaliate against Americans. He has the means to do it.”

In a view shared by many moderate Arab states, Jordan’s information minister, Mohammed Khatib, said he fears that the raids might “lead to even more dangerous results.”

“This American action will not bring peace to the Mediterranean basin,” said a Saudi Arabian government spokesman in Riyadh, the Saudi capital.

No Support for U.S.

In Cairo, where Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak conferred with his top aides on the crisis, a spokesman pointedly avoided any support for the American action.

“The use of force contradicts world commitment to the settlement of disputes in accordance with the United Nations Charter,” a government spokesman noted in a terse statement.

Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S. economic aid, after Israel, and is unlikely to openly criticize the United States.

On the other hand, even though the Mubarak regime has blamed Libya for carrying out terrorist attacks against Egyptian targets, it still is embarrassed by the high-handed way in which U.S. warplanes forced down an Egyptian plane carrying the Palestinian hijackers of the cruise ship Achille Lauro last year in Sicily.

Last month, Egypt was reported to have rejected repeated U.S. requests to cooperate in planning an effort to overthrow Kadafi by force.

While moderate Arab states were relatively mild in their criticism of Washington, Libya’s traditional allies and supporters in the region sounded a predictably ominous note.

In Iran, a non-Arab ally of Libya, Prime Minister Hussein Moussavi said the American raids have destroyed the security of American citizens throughout the Arab world.

In Damascus, a government spokesman said Syria “stands by Libya with all of its strength and calls on Arab governments to understand the dangers of this act and confront it.”

Iran, Libya and Syria have been loosely aligned in a radical alliance in the last six years, exchanging technical expertise and even military equipment. But it is unclear whether the three states have any formal military alliance that might be invoked now.

The Reagan Administration was also condemned by a number of radical Palestinian groups that are based in Syria but have received support from Kadafi in the past.

George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, called for the “liquidation of U.S. interests throughout the Arab world.”

‘Hostile Targets’

Another radical Palestinian group, led by Col. Abu Moussa, said in Damascus that “all U.S and British interests are hostile targets to us inside and outside the Arab world.”

In Amman, the Jordanian capital, Khalil Wazir, deputy military commander of the Palestine Liberation Organization, described the United States as “practicing the ugliest kind of official terrorism, which is the same as that official terrorism which victimizes the Palestinian people.”

There were similar statements from other Palestinian groups but no word from the elusive faction led by Abu Nidal, whose reported role in attacks on airports in Rome and Vienna last year led to the Reagan Administration’s efforts to squeeze Kadafi. The Libyan leader reportedly finances the Abu Nidal group.

Foreign ministers of the Arab League were expected this week to meet in Tunisia to discuss Libya’s request to invoke the group’s joint defense agreement. The move would represent a declaration that the Arabs regard the attack on Libya as an attack against all Arabs, but it would carry no further significance.

Chedli Klibi, the Arab League’s secretary general, said in Brussels that the U.S. bombing runs on Tripoli and Benghazi were “unprecedented in their disproportionate scale and the gravity of their consequences for the region.”

“It is inadmissible that a great power should adopt such a belligerent and impulsive attitude which endangers peace,” Klibi said.

In Geneva, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries gave little more than minimal sympathy to Libya, declining even to discuss a call for a retaliatory oil embargo against the United States. Only the eight Arab members of 13-nation oil cartel approved a statement condemning the attack.

Statement of Condemnation

The meeting, convened to make another effort at production cuts and new quotas to reverse the fall in world oil prices, devoted about two hours to discussing the Libya situation and then issued a statement of condemnation that was supported by Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya itself.

The members abstaining were Ecuador, Gabon, Venezuela, Indonesia and Nigeria.

Later in the evening, Nigeria switched to support the condemnation following similar action taken by the Organization of African Unity.

Libya has never been a very popular member of OPEC. Its maverick role in pushing for higher prices and ignoring production quotas has been a constant irritant to the more conservative and orderly oil producers.

The suggestion that OPEC retaliate against the United States with an oil embargo was raised at the meeting by Iran on behalf of Libya, but it was simply ignored.

At the conclusion of the discussion on Libya, Venezuelan Oil Minister Arturo Hernandez Grisanti, the current OPEC president, read out a brief statement saying, “By a majority, OPEC condemns attacks against an OPEC country and acts against international law.”

The statement added that “other measures” would be announced after consultation with member governments.

Times staff writer Don Cook contributed to this article from Geneva.