U.S. Defends Libya Raid; U.N. Assembly Asked to Condemn It

UNITED NATIONS —  The United States portrayed Libya Wednesday as the source of a “worldwide terrorist campaign,” while Soviet Bloc and nonaligned nations pressed for condemnation of the U.S. raid on Libya last April.

Bringing Libya’s complaint before the U.N. General Assembly, Ambassador Ali Treiki accused the United States of an unprovoked attack April 15, aimed primarily at “innocent civilians, many of them women and children.” He urged the 159-nation assembly to condemn the U.S. air raid.

The Soviet Bloc and nonaligned nations drafted a resolution that would condemn the attack, urge the United States not to repeat it and ask other states not to assist Washington in any similar operation in the future. Diplomatic sources said they expected the assembly to approve the draft by an overwhelming majority today.

U.S. Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), defending the U.S. raid, rejected the Libyan move as a “hypocritical complaint from a regime that deserves the contempt of the international community.”

He presented to the assembly what he called a “sordid record of Libyan terrorism and violence” that he said began soon after Col. Moammar Kadafi seized power in 1969 and gained intensity in the late 1970s and early 1980s with attacks on airports and civilian aircraft.