Kadafi Aide Hints at Reagan Assassination Attempt

A senior aide to Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi indicated Saturday that Libya might attempt to assassinate President Reagan if the United States attacks the North African nation.

“We have not sent anyone to kill him yet, but I put 100 lines under the word yet, “ the senior aide said in an interview. “When he sends his people here, he will be surprised what is going to happen to him.”

The senior Libyan aide, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, said Libya still expects U.S. or Israeli retaliation for the Dec. 27 Arab terrorist attacks at airports in Rome and Vienna, in which five Americans and 10 other air travelers were killed.

“Reagan didn’t get even with us yet,” said the aide, who in the past has accurately reflected Kadafi’s views. “Everything he’s done has backfired.”

Reagan last week cut commercial ties with Libya, froze Libyan government assets in the United States and ordered the hundreds of Americans working in Libya to leave by Feb. 1. American workers are heavily involved in Libya’s critical oil industry.

Washington said it has evidence that Libya was involved in the airport attacks and in many other terrorist actions in recent years. Libya has denied involvement in the Dec. 27 incidents.

Meanwhile, the official Kuwaiti news agency, quoting an unidentified diplomatic source in Beirut, said batteries of Soviet-made missiles on the Libyan coast shot down a U.S. Navy plane over the Gulf of Sidra on Wednesday.

A 6th Fleet spokesman said an FA-18 fighter crashed at sea off the French port of Nice during a routine training mission Wednesday, but “there is no indication that it is anything other than an accident.”

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Robert Sims said the Kuwaiti report is “totally without foundation.”

There was no immediate comment from Libya on the report.

Nice is on the northern shore of the Mediterranean, about 1,000 miles northwest of the Libya.