Death of Child Assailed as U.S. Terror in Libya

On the stairwell of a damaged building in the Ben Ashur neighborhood, a young man in his 30s stared transfixed as two workers removed rubble from the landing above him. Then he saw something that caused him to stagger back against the wall, brace himself and break into heavy sobs.

First a foot, and then a small arm with a gold bracelet were uncovered by the workers. Then the body of the man’s 18-month-old daughter was lifted out.

“See now who the terrorists are,” a young man on the street outside said. “This is the terror of the Americans.”

Six Bodies Counted

In all, reporters taken by authorities on a limited tour of Tripoli counted at least six bodies in the middle-class residential neighborhood, including those of three children.

Overall casualty figures resulting from Tuesday’s bombing by U.S. fighter-bombers were not available. But officials did announce that Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter, Hana, was among those killed and that two of his six sons were among the injured. Kadafi was not injured in the raid, Libyan officials reported. He and his wife adopted the infant girl last year because they wanted a second daughter.

Kadafi has not been seen in public or heard on the radio since the attack. However, Libyan television Tuesday night showed film of the Libyan leader meeting with the Soviet ambassador.

Mohammed Muafa, director of the Tripoli Children’s Hospital, said Kadafi’s daughter died of internal injuries and head injuries suffered in the air strike on the Aziziya Barracks in southern Tripoli, where Kadafi had his headquarters and lived with his family.

Doctors at Tripoli’s Central Hospital said at least 12 civilians were killed and up to 100 others injured. But diplomats estimated that 100 people were killed in the attack on Tripoli. And officials said nothing about military casualties in the airfields, barracks and training areas bombed in Tripoli and Benghazi, and reporters were not permitted to go there.

Capital Subdued, Somber

The mood in this capital the morning after the air strike was subdued and somber. The streets were mostly deserted, and there were no public rallies or revolutionary parades as there were after the confrontation with the United States last month in the Gulf of Sidra.

Beneath the somber mood, the city was still jumpy. Shortly after 9 p.m. (11 a.m. PST), anti-aircraft fire reddened the sky as Libya’s air defenses went into action for the second night in a row. No planes were seen or heard, but flashes of white light illuminated the skyline over the southern half of the city, where a blackout was in effect as a precaution against another U.S. attack.

Throughout the day, Tripoli radio had issued threats and exhortations to Arabs to arise and kill Americans wherever they can be found. Libya called for an oil embargo against the United States as one measure of retaliation.

Libya itself acted, attacking a U.S. communications station on Lampedusa, an Italian island about 200 miles due north of Tripoli in the Mediterranean.

Contradictory Reports

Details of the attack, which came about 14 hours after the U.S. raid, were sketchy and contradictory. Libyan officials said the facility was attacked and destroyed by planes. But diplomats and other sources said the station was apparently fired on by one or two Libyan missile boats and that little or no damage was done.

In Tripoli, there was much bitterness and anger at the United States, the emotions shared by both Libyans and foreign diplomats here--because some of the bombs had fallen on the densely populated Ben Ashur neighborhood and seemed to have injured mostly civilians.

The American planes narrowly missed what apparently was one of their intended targets, a modern, multi-story building in central Tripoli that is said to serve as security headquarters and a communications center for Libya’s overseas People’s Bureaus, or embassies.

Embassies Damaged

The building’s windows were shattered, but it was otherwise intact. In the nearby neighborhood, however, three small, multi-story buildings were reduced to rubble. Among the two dozen or so buildings damaged in the attack were the French, Austrian, Finnish, Romanian and Iranian embassies and the Swiss ambassador’s residence.

The French Embassy, next to a building that was demolished in the attack, was the most heavily damaged of the diplomatic compounds. The windows were shattered and the masonry was ripped off in one place, exposing iron girders.

Diplomats said at least nine foreigners were injured, including the five children of a Greek dentist, two Yugoslavs and an Italian couple who work for their embassy but are not diplomatic personnel. All nine lived in Ben Ashur.

At least 100 homes were destroyed or damaged by the bombs, which blasted huge craters in the ground, burst water mains and showered shrapnel over hundreds of yards, smashing cars under huge chunks of masonry. Live power cables snaked through the streets.

Man Pulled From Rubble

At one bombed-out courtyard, rescuers scrambled to pull a man from a damaged home but he died before they could free him. Another body, that of a man, was dragged from the rubble near the French Embassy.

“Really, nobody would have thought Americans would hit the cities with foreigners and all these other civilians,” the wife of a Western European diplomat said. “It was really criminal.”

“I can’t understand why they just didn’t hit military bases,” an angry diplomat said. “Why bomb populated areas? I can’t understand it. It just takes my breath away.”

A Libyan youth, who carried a rifle on his back, was standing guard a short way down the street. He said, “I will kill any American man now.”

Observers said that at least some of the casualties may have been caused by the Libyans, who fired dozens of rockets and missiles at the attacking jets in the small hours of Tuesday morning.

Aircraft Blamed

Reporters saw the fiery trails of at least two rockets launched from a patrol boat. They exploded in the center of the city. But judging by the size of several bomb craters and the damage to the buildings where many of the civilian casualties occurred, it appeared that most of the damage in Ben Ashur was caused by the attacking aircraft.

According to Libyan officials and witnesses, the Aziziya barracks and Kadafi’s residence itself were damaged only lightly in the raids. Journalists were not allowed near the barracks, but a man who identified himself as a West German living and working at the barracks told a press conference that damage there was light.

The man gave his name as Erich Braun and said he was an air-conditioning technician from Munich. He said a number of buildings in the sprawling, walled-in compound were slightly damaged and that all the windows were shattered. He said that to his knowledge no structure had been destroyed and added that the Kadafi residence was intact.

He said that when the attack started, he fled to a “safe room” underground and did not see the bombing and did not see Kadafi afterward. His left hand was bandaged, and he said he had fallen and cut himself on broken glass.

Reporters were not allowed to visit the site of another air strike, a Libyan military airport at the site of the old U.S. Wheelus Air Base south of the city.

No Wreckage Found

Reporters were taken, however, about 10 miles outside the city to see what Libyan officials said would be the wreckage of an F-111 fighter-bomber shot down by anti-aircraft fire. But when they reached the site, they were turned around and taken back to the capital. No explanation was given, but apparently the wreckage could not be found.

In attacking Libya in retaliation for what the United States maintains is Kadafi’s support of terrorism, the Reagan Administration apparently hoped to exploit domestic dissatisfaction in Libya over food shortages and other economic problems and possibly provoke a coup by some of the 73,000 men in the armed forces.

But diplomats here said the air strikes are likely to have the opposite effect. They are likely, they said, to rally the Libyan people, even those who do not like Kadafi.

“Before, Libyans seemed to regard the dispute with the U.S. as something between only Kadafi and Reagan,” a diplomat said. “But now you have Libyan homes destroyed and Libyan civilians lying dead. People will perceive this not as an attack on Kadafi but as an attack on Libya and Libyans.”