U.S. Planes Destroyed 13 Libya Aircraft : ‘Flawless’ Operation Hit Terrorist Nerve Center, Pentagon Says

WASHINGTON —  U.S. warplanes attacking five primary targets in Libya on Monday destroyed at least 13 aircraft on the ground and heavily damaged the “nerve center” of Moammar Kadafi’s terrorist operations, the Pentagon said today.

“It was an absolutely flawless professional performance” by pilots of the British-based Air Force F-111 fighter-bombers and Navy A-6E attack aircraft launched from two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean, Pentagon spokesman Robert Sims said.

Thirteen of 24 F-111s that took off and 12 of 14 A-6Es that were launched carried out low-level bombing runs, the Pentagon said.

Five F-111s and two A-6Es aborted their missions before reaching their targets, it said. Three of the F-111s aborted because of technical failures, it said.

Crew Status Changed

The status of the two crewmen aboard one of the Air Force fighter-bombers that was thought to have exploded in a fireball on return from its target was changed from missing to killed in action, Sims said.

The Pentagon released to reporters a videotape taken by a camera looking through the target acquisition radar of an F-111 that carried out an attack at less than 500 feet in altitude on the Aziziya Barracks in Tripoli, Kadafi’s headquarters.

The camera showed the plane closing in on Kadafi’s tent, his sometime living quarters, in the middle of the barracks compound.

Kadafi was not a target of the attack, Sims told reporters.

Target Was Nerve Center

“The purpose of the attack was to hit the nerve center of terrorist training (the barracks),” he said. “We were not attacking individuals but a command structure . . . that controlled terrorism worldwide.

“We don’t know where Kadafi was,” Sims added.

Four 2,000-pound laser-guided bombs were dropped by the plane on the barracks, Sims said.

Another F-111 loosed 12 500-pound bombs on the military side of Tripoli airport, he said. Film coverage jumped from a blurry radar screen to a clear, close-up of a grounded aircraft.

‘Major Damage’

The bombs dropped on the airport destroyed between three to five Soviet-built IL-76 Candid transport planes and caused “major damage” to the barracks and support facilities, Sims said.

Navy A-6Es, carrying out a simultaneous attack on Benina military airfield in Benghazi, 400 miles to the east, destroyed four “and probably more” Soviet-made MIG-23 fighters, two prop-driven F-27 transports and two MI-8 Hip helicopters and damaged a third MI-8, Sims said.

Sims displayed reconnaissance photographs of both bombed locations that carried labels of the destroyed and damaged aircraft.

In addition, Sims said there was “major damage” to the Benghazi army barracks that were used as an alternate command post for terrorist operations.