The plane can be compared to that of the F-111, which flew from England to Libya and back when the United States bombed Tripoli in April 1986.

In April 1986, relations with Sudan deteriorated when the U.S. bombed Tripoli, Libya.

Ten days later, American warplanes bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya in a retaliatory raid Western diplomats say killed 100 people.

Although contact between Irish republicans and the Libyan government was broken off in 1976, it was re-established after the US Air Force bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986.

When the US bombed Tripoli in 86 I asked a Libyan friend what the people there thought of it.

On 15 April 1986 US Air Force and Navy planes bombed Benghazi and Tripoli.

"Some people are terribly upset," he says, "because we haven't bombed Tripoli."

Two years later, the United States bombed Tripoli and Benghazi as a reprisal for alleged Libyan involvement in the bombing of a Berlin nightclub used by American military personnel.

It cannot reap the sympathy it gained among third world peoples in 1986 when U.S. warplanes bombed Tripoli, killing 37 people.

The report contends that Libya has conducted or supported an average of one terrorist act a month since April 1986, when American planes bombed Tripoli and Benghazi.