The United States Air Force (USAF), Navy, and Marine Corps carried out air strikes, code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon, against Libya on 15 April 1986 in retaliation for the West Berlin discotheque bombing ten days earlier, which U.S. president Ronald Reagan blamed on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. There were 40 reported Libyan casualties; one U.S. plane was shot down. One of the claimed Libyan deaths was of a baby girl, reported to be Gaddafi's daughter, Hana Gaddafi. However, there are doubts both as to whether she was really killed, or even if she truly existed.
The targets were two alleged Libyan command and control centers for overseas operations, one training camp, and Benina and Mitiga International Airports. The strikes primarily used F-111 Aardvark fighter-bombers, launched from RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, and A-6E Intruder attack aircraft launched from the USS America (CV-66) and USS Coral Sea (CV-43) in the Gulf of Sidra. These were supported by electronic-warfare EF-111 Ravens and EA-6B Prowlers and anti-radar missile-carrying F/A-18 Hornets and A-7E Corsairs. Political disagreements led France, Spain, and Italy to deny the use of their United States Air Forces in Europe bases, and deny overflight permits.
Two USAF captains were killed when their F-111 was shot down over the Gulf of Sidra, possibly by a Libyan S-200 missile. Libya released the body of one pilot in 1989, and denied holding the body of the other pilot, while the pilot's family alleged they had.
Libya represented a high priority for President Ronald Reagan shortly after his 1981 inauguration. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was firmly anti-Israel and had supported militant groups in the Palestinian territories and Syria. There were reports that Libya was attempting to become a nuclear power and Gaddafi's occupation of Chad, which was rich in uranium, was of major concern to the United States. Gaddafi's ambitions to set up a federation of Arab and Muslim states in North Africa were alarming to U.S. interests. Furthermore, then-U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig wanted to take proactive measures against Gaddafi because he had been using former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives (most notably Edwin P. Wilson and Frank E. Terpil) to help set up militia camps.
After the December 1985 Rome and Vienna airport attacks, which killed 19 and wounded approximately 140, Gaddafi indicated that he would continue to support the Red Army Faction, the Red Brigades, and the Irish Republican Army as long as the European governments allegedly “supported anti-Gaddafi Libyans.”
After years of occasional skirmishes with Libya over Libyan territorial claims to the Gulf of Sidra, the United States contemplated a military attack to strike targets within the Libyan mainland. In March 1986, the United States, asserting the 12-nautical-mile (22 km; 14 mi) limit to territorial waters according to international law, sent a carrier task force to the region. Libya responded with counter-maneuvers on the 24 March that led to a naval engagement in the Gulf of Sidra.
On 5 April 1986, Libyan agents bombed "La Belle" nightclub in West Berlin, killing three people, including two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, and injuring 229 people, including 79 Americans. West Germany and the United States obtained cable transcripts from Libyan agents in East Germany who were involved in the attack.
More detailed information was retrieved years later when Stasi archives were investigated by the reunited Germany. Libyan agents who had carried out the operation from the Libyan embassy in East Germany were identified and prosecuted by Germany in the 1990s.
The attack mission against Libya had been preceded in October 1985 by an exercise in which the 20th TFW stationed at RAF Upper Heyford airbase in the UK, which was equipped with F-111E Aardvarks, received a top-secret order to launch a simulated attack mission on 18 October, with ten F-111Es armed with eight 500-lb practice bombs, against a simulated airfield located in Labrador, Canada south of CFB Goose Bay. The mission was designated Operation Ghost Rider. The mission was a full rehearsal for a long-range strike against Libya. The mission was completed successfully, with the exception of one aircraft that had all but one of its eight bombs hang up on one of its wing racks. The lessons learned were passed on to the 48th TFW which was equipped with the newer F-111F model.
In August 1985 six specially trained B-52H crews of the 23rd Bombardment Squadron in Minot, North Dakota, were designated as the Advanced Conventional Taskforce (ACT) and trained at specialized low-level conventional bombing missions, including the first ever use of Night Vision Goggles by B-52 crews. The specially trained crews were capable of delivering 6 strings of MK-117 munitions seconds apart with pinpoint accuracy operating from North Dakota. In six months of intensive training the special mission unit dropped more live ordnance in the Nevada and Utah test ranges than had been expended since the conclusion of the Vietnam War. The B-52 provided a powerful alternative or follow-on option, however, as the backbone of the U.S. nuclear deterrent there was some risk to using the B-52 option against an SA-6 defended target.
Elements of the then-secret 4450th Tactical Group (USAF) were put on standby to fly the strike mission against Libya. Over 30 F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack aircraft had already been delivered to Tactical Air Command (USAF) and were operating from Tonopah Test Range Airport in Nevada. European Command senior officers knew nothing about the stealth capabilities of the F-117, or that the aircraft even existed. Within an hour of the planned launch of the F-117s, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger scrubbed the stealth mission, fearing a compromise of the secret aircraft and its development program. The air strike was carried out with conventional U.S. Navy and USAF aircraft. The F-117 would remain completely unknown to the world for several more months, before being unveiled in 1988 and featured prominently in media coverage of Operation Desert Storm.
For the Libyan raid, the United States was denied overflight rights by France, Spain, and Italy as well as the use of European continental bases, forcing the USAF portion of the operation to be flown around France and Spain, over Portugal and through the Straits of Gibraltar, adding 1,300 miles (2,100 km) each way and requiring multiple aerial refuelings. The French refusal alone added 2,800 km. French President François Mitterrand refused overflight clearance because the United States was interested in limited action in Libya while France was more interested in action that would remove Gaddafi from power. Another factor in the French decision was the United States' last-minute failure to participate in a retaliatory air raid on Iranian positions after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings.
After several unproductive days of meetings with European and Arab nations, and influenced by an American serviceman's death, on 14 April Ronald Reagan ordered an air raid on the following Libyan targets:
Bab al-Azizia Barracks in Tripoli – Gaddafi's command and control center for overseas operations
Murrat Sidi Bilal in Tripoli – a training camp for naval commandos and combat frogmen
Mitiga International Airport – used by Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft
Jamahiriyah Guard barracks in Benghazi – an alternative command and control headquarters for overseas operations, and which contained a warehouse for storage of MiG aircraft components
Benina International Airport – used as a base by defending fighters