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By then Libyan radio was claiming many casualties, including the death of one of Gaddafi's eight children and the injury of two others. Dr. Mohamed Muafa, who identified himself as the Gaddafi family's physician, said he had found all three children in the wreckage of the colonel's home an hour after the attack. Washington officials were frankly surprised there were not more casualties in Gaddafi's compound. Of the five bombers assigned to hit it, four dropped 16 laser-guided 2,000-lb. Paveways. The bombs cratered the compound, blew out windows and caved in a wall or two, but they did not flatten any buildings. Gaddafi's tent was still standing, only slightly grazed by a fallen utility pole.
The Libyans also showed foreigners the residential damage wrought by U.S. bombs. But they showed no inclination to allow inspections of military targets. The U.S. displayed aerial photographs of the damage at the Benina air base near Benghazi showing the wreckage of at least four MiG-23 Flogger jets, two Mi-8 Hip lightweight helicopters and two F27 propeller-driven aircraft. The Pentagon estimates that at the Tripoli military airport the U.S. took out five Il-76 transports and caused major damage to several buildings. Defense officials admit that damage to the Sidi Bilal facility was less than they had expected, and withheld the results of bombing at the Benghazi barracks.
Libya's only military riposte to the raid was feeble. On Tuesday afternoon it launched two Soviet-made SS-1 ballistic missiles, each with about a ton of dynamite in its warhead, in the general direction of the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa. Fired from a military base near the Tunisian coast, they were evidently aimed at a Coast Guard navigational aid facility located on Lampedusa. Both missiles exploded three miles short of land.
Tripoli also claimed that it had knocked as many as a dozen U.S. aircraft out of the skies, and that surviving pilots were being hunted down by local citizens "like mad dogs." Authorities made no attempt to prove either claim, but few Libyans expected Gaddafi to let matters rest where they stood. Nor did those on the front line of the U.S. side seem to think that last week's raid put an end to the contest of wills between Gaddafi and Washington. On the day after the raid, TIME Correspondent Sam Allis noticed that someone had scrawled a message on the circular rear end of a Sidewinder missile stored on the deck of the carrier America. The grim inscription: THIS IS FOR MOMAR'S MOM.
CHART: REAGAN DECIDES
WEEK OF APRIL 7-13
"Try to make the world smaller for the terrorists," commanded President Reagan on April 7, as the U.S. looked for ways to forestall a new wave of Libyan terrorism. The planning for an air strike that would ultimately engage 150 warplanes and drop some 60 tons of bombs on Libya was intricate and constrained by a host of political and diplomatic as well as military considerations. It required U.S. airmen to fly through heavy flak in the dead of night and strike with flawless precision. The primary target: Colonel Gaddafi's headquarters. The unstated hope: that the Libyan leader would be asleep there when the bombs fell.
WALTERS VISITS EUROPE
APRIL 11-14
In a late-hour mission, the U.N. Ambassador was dispatched to win the backing of U.S. allies for a raid.
F-111s LEAVE U.K.