Thirty-five years ago, Libya blew up an international flight leaving London for NYC during the Gaddafi regime. To what end? Only the deceased de facto ruler of Libya could tell the victims’ families. I’m guessing it was to demonstrate how the West wasn’t invincible and he could hurt its citizens at random.
In the Eighties, Gaddafi had an ongoing beef with the US via both Carter and Reagan, the latter really ginned it up since picking a fight with the sparsely populated North African country was less risky than sticking it to Iran. American bombers had struck Libyan cities while I was in high school and college. I think one sortie was for the disco bombing in West Germany and/or saying Gaddafi couldn’t extend his borders as far as he wished into the Mediterranean.
When the tragedy initially happened, I don’t remember anyone taking responsibility nor the trigger-happy St. Reagan administration blaming a target. With the latter, this was not something they wanted to deal with given the upcoming handover to Bush the Elder in a month. I’m confident the usual list was pitched on the pre-Faux News shows: Iran, Syria, the PLO, Cuba, Libya and maybe, North Korea. Eventually it was pinned on Libya yet it took many years to get Gaddafi to just apologize. After the September 11 al-Qeda attacks, the Colonel changed his tune somewhat and I think he gave up the people behind the dirty work to save his ass. It did him no good in the long run since nobody in the West came to his defense when his rule collapsed in 2011 and he was killed by an angry mob.
Such a shame with all the lives lost. Meanwhile the US didn’t freak out and implement draconian security measures until it happened on American soil. Smooth move USA.