U.S. Planes Hit Libya Missile Site, Knock Out 2 Patrol Craft : Respond to Attack by Kadafi Forces; No American Losses

American military forces destroyed a Libyan missile control site, left a patrol boat ablaze and dead in the water, and severely disabled another small Libyan vessel Monday after Libya attacked U.S. Navy planes operating in international waters with at least six surface-to-air missiles. None of the U.S. planes were hit, and there were no American casualties, Administration officials said. White House aides said there appeared to be no survivors aboard one of the Libyan vessels, which normally carry a crew of 27.

White House spokesman Larry Speakes called the attack on the U.S. aircraft “entirely unprovoked and beyond the bounds of normal international conduct.”

In response to the U.S. action, Libya early today vowed to “make the Mediterranean into a sea of fire.” In broadcasts on state-run Libyan radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., Libya called for attacks on U.S. oil facilities and American workers throughout the Arab world.

The military episode, which extended over a period of more than five hours, grew out of widely publicized Navy maneuvers designed to assert the United States’ right to operate in the Gulf of Sidra, off the coast of Libya in the central Mediterranean.

The United States and virtually all other nations have rejected Col. Moammar Kadafi’s claim that the entire gulf, which, at its broadest, measures 150 miles from its mouth to the nation’s coastline, is Libyan territory.

Speakes said that the U.S. forces have been operating in the area since Sunday afternoon because, beyond the 12-mile internationally recognized limit, “the Gulf of Sidra belongs to no one. . . . All nations are free to move through international waters and air space.”

Confrontations over the gulf have become a recurrent theme in the Reagan Administration’s continuing confrontation with Kadafi and what it believes to be his role in sponsoring and financing international terrorism. In 1981, U.S. planes shot down two Libyan fighters in a earlier conflict over the disputed maritime zone.

‘Line of Death’

Monday’s confrontation came after planes from carriers of the U.S. 6th Fleet crossed a so-called “line of death” that Kadafi had drawn across the mouth of the gulf, at 32 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude, as the seaward frontier of Libyan territory.

After the Libyans fired six missiles at the U.S. planes, American carrier jets fired anti-ship Harpoon missiles at the two Libyan vessels. The first was left ablaze and dead in the water after being struck by two missiles fired from an A-6 attack aircraft from the carrier America.

The second Libyan vessel, which was equipped with weapons having a 38-mile range, was “severely damaged” in a later attack, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger reported at the Pentagon.

American forces also fired missiles at a Libyan missile-launching site located at Surt, on the country’s northern coast, destroying the site’s radar equipment.

“The . . . site is out of action,” Weinberger said. Although missile launchers at Surt were not hit, officials said, the system is blind without the radar.

The missile site was installed with the assistance of Soviet technicians and advisers in recent months and became operational in January, Pentagon officials have said. However, officials said they do not know if any Soviet citizens were at the site when missiles were fired from it at U.S. targets, or when the U.S. retaliation occurred.

Four Soviet ships were in the area, but played no significant role in assisting Libyan defenses, a Pentagon official said. Such vessels can spot aircraft operating in the region and, presumably, intercept radio communications.

Early Libyan Claim

Before White House spokesman Speakes announced details of the confrontation, the Libyan official news agency Jana claimed that the nation’s air defenses had shot down three U.S. warplanes, an allegation that was denied by all official sources in Washington.

In a question-and-answer session with reporters after his announcement, Speakes denied that the presence of U.S. military aircraft and ships in the Gulf of Sidra constituted a deliberate provocation to Kadafi. “This was not an act designed to provoke a response or to humiliate Kadafi,” Speakes said. “We simply cannot allow other nations to dictate where we can or can’t go.”

He pointed out that U.S. forces have crossed the so-called “line of death” seven times since 1981. But he acknowledged that the Administration “did not, of course, proceed in this area with our eyes closed” and that future incidents could occur if Kadafi did not capitulate.

‘Additional Measures’

“We reserve the right to take additional measures as events warrant,” Speakes said, labeling Libya “an outlaw regime . . . up to no good.”

The Administration summoned congressional leaders to the White House at 1:30 p.m. PST to inform them of the U.S. military action. Some had been consulted by telephone throughout the morning as the confrontation was building.

The drama in the Mediterranean began unfolding at 4:52 a.m. PST, when Libyan forces fired two long-range, SA-5 surface-to-air missiles at U.S. aircraft in the Gulf of Sidra. Two additional SA-5s and an SA-2, the latter designed primarily for use on fast patrol boats, followed at 9:45 a.m. PST. A sixth missile, another SA-5, was fired at 10:14 a.m.

At this point, Speakes said the Administration had evidence that the radar equipment at the Libyan launch site at Surt was “preparing to lock on to U.S. aircraft” for a possible hit. With that knowledge and after the Libyans had fired the six missiles, the U.S. forces responded at about 11:36 a.m with a missile assault on an approaching Libyan patrol boat.

Speakes described the boat as a high-speed missile patrol boat with weapons having a 38-mile range. He said it was approaching the American fleet and was “deemed to have hostile intent.” After the U.S. forces fired, Speakes said the boat was “dead in the water, burning, and appears to be sinking. There are no apparent survivors.”

Radar Destroyed

About noon PST, the U.S. obliterated the radar equipment at the Libyan launch site at Surt by firing high-speed anti-radiation missiles.

At about 1:19 p.m., U.S. forces fired on and crippled a second Libyan patrol boat.

Speakes said the Administration would not be deterred by the incidents and would continue its presence in the gulf. The White House formally told Congress last Friday afternoon that it was pursuing the military exercise.

In addition, the Soviets were informed that the United States was conducting a “freedom of navigation” exercise in the area “so that the channels of communication would be clear,” Speakes said. Libya is regarded by the Administration as a client state of the Soviet Union.

Reagan was briefed early Monday on the situation and then kept up to date throughout the day by national security adviser John M. Poindexter. At 11:30 a.m. PST, after U.S. forces had fired on the first Libyan patrol boat, Reagan met with Weinberger and with the chairman of his Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. William J. Crowe Jr.

No ‘Crisis Atmosphere’

Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), the majority leader, who met with Reagan on a budget matter at 1 p.m. PST, said there was no “crisis atmosphere” in the White House that he could detect.

At the Pentagon, however, there was considerable confusion--and less certainty than at Speakes’ briefing--about what missiles were fired. Weinberger said that Libya fired four SA-5s but that U.S. officials were not sure whether additional missiles had been fired.

Weinberger pointed out that the United States is continuing to conduct naval and flight operations in the area, and “if anyone interferes with us, we’ll take appropriate action.”

While U.S. aircraft first crossed south of the “line of death” at 1:20 p.m. PST Sunday, American carriers had been conducting flight operations in the region since early Sunday morning, and had flown 400 sorties from the flattops by late Monday.

However, the aircraft and U.S. vessels accompanying the carriers had never approached closer than 40 miles of the Libyan coast, a Pentagon official said.

In threatening to retaliate, the Libyan government early today called for the execution of Americans it said were “spies” posing as experts and consultants in Arab countries.

Libyan radio said the whole Arab nation would soon be “racing toward the battlefield and crowding toward the war against America.”

“The oil which America exploits and usurps, should now be destroyed,” the broadcast said. “The American bases in the Arab homeland should now be stormed. The American spies who were pushed forward as experts and consultants should now be executed, wherever they might be in the Arab homeland.”

A State Department official had no comment about the Libyan threats. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the latest U.S. estimates are that there are as few as 100 Americans remaining in Libya.

“Most others, we believe, have left,” the official said. “One of the problems in counting them--which is also one of the reasons we recommended they leave the country--is that there is no American Embassy to keep track of them, of their whereabouts and their welfare.”

Other stories and pictures are on Pages 12, 13 and 14.