Libya Steps Up ‘Human Bombs’ Rhetoric but May Cool Off Sidra Crisis

The Libyan government escalated its anti-American rhetoric Wednesday in broadcasts to the Arab world, threatening attacks by “Arab suicide squads” and “human bombs” against U.S. embassies and American “companies of terror.”

But as the vitriol on the airwaves intensified, there were signs that Col. Moammar Kadafi might be ready to cool down the military crisis in the Gulf of Sidra, confident that despite losses from U.S. Navy attacks, he has won a propaganda victory.

One indication was the absence--for the second day since American planes began hitting Libyan patrol boats in the gulf and a missile base ashore--of detailed news or inflammatory domestic commentary concerning the American strikes.

Business as Usual

To the average citizen here in the capital, life was normal, with children playing soccer in the parks, soldiers planting flowers along roadsides and sparsely supplied shops doing business as usual.

There were no signs of crisis and none of a military alert, even at the Libyan naval dock in Tripoli’s harbor, where several small warships and a World War II-vintage submarine were moored.

Another indication of a possible easing of the immediate conflict was a visit Tuesday by Malta’s Prime Minister Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici to Kadafi in his rug-draped desert tent just outside town. Bonnici, whose country maintains a close Libyan relationship, is spearheading a Mediterranean diplomatic effort to move the U.S.-Libyan naval confrontation into the U.N. Security Council.

In New York, the council debate opened Wednesday night. Soviet delegate Yuri V. Dubinin and U.S. Ambassador Vernon A. Walters addressed the session, with the Moscow representative assailing U.S. military strikes in the Gulf of Sidra as “acts of armed aggression.”

Bonnici, in an interview with The Times before his meeting with Kadafi, appeared optimistic about a quick end to the crisis.

“We have appealed to both parties to try to settle the outstanding issues by negotiation, not by the use of force,” the Maltese leader said. Leaving no doubt that his sympathies in the confrontation lie with Libya, with which Malta has had longstanding economic ties, Bonnici said that his Mediterranean island nevertheless shares the U.S. position that most of the Gulf of Sidra is international waters.

Bonnici stressed that “we are directly involved in this region, and armed conflict here is a question of life and death for us in the center of the Mediterranean.” He said the people of the region cannot see a sufficient threat to U.S. rights and interests to warrant military action just because Libya “has made a political declaration regarding its territorial waters.”

“We think the United States, as a major power, should give a good example by using civilized means to challenge the declaration and not have recourse to the use of arms,” Bonnici said.

In sharp contrast to the relaxed mood in Tripoli, Libyan shortwave broadcasts to the Arab world included their most bitter commentary of the week, calling for worldwide terrorist attacks against U.S. targets.

Suicide Raids Urged

A commentary monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp. called on “Arab suicide squads to pursue American interests wherever they may be--in the United States, embassies, American interests. . . .” It defined “interests” as “companies of terror spying on the Arab masses and conspiring against them and plundering their wealth,” apparently referring to U.S. firms doing business in Arab countries.

The broadcast called for “suicide squads, human bombs, missiles and aircraft to deter and resist (American) terrorism and destroy it for good,” adding, “Oh, heroes of our Arab nation, let your missiles pursue U.S. embassies and interests wherever they may be.”

Diplomatic sources here and in Cairo said the inflamed Libyan rhetoric, coupled with news of the American missile attacks against Libyan patrol boats and against the SAM-5 missile facility at Surt, is falling on increasingly sympathetic ears throughout the Arab world.

Speaking of the U.S. Navy actions Monday and Tuesday, a senior Western diplomat here said: “It baffles me. Kadafi has been able to portray it as a victory, not a defeat. It is seen as a brave stance against a dangerous foe.”

In Cairo, a top Egyptian diplomat said, “While there is no sympathy for Kadafi here, there is a definite sympathy for Libya as an Arab country, and no one can afford to take the U.S. side when an Arab country is under attack by a U.S. leader.”

He said the American action was “especially embarrassing to Egypt,” a longtime foe of Kadafi, “because it forces us to choose between things we do not want to choose.”

“If the United States would only leave Kadafi alone, he would fade away into nothing,” the Egyptian diplomat added, “but this just feeds his ego and encourages him.” Arab friends of America are under severe pressure as a result of the U.S. action because it provides anti-American ammunition for the fundamentalist movements that are working to topple pro-U.S. regimes, he said.

“It’s like Hollywood cooking up a sex scandal, not to embarrass a star but to publicize him,” the diplomat said.

Despite the swirling anti-American rhetoric, neither the U.S. workers who remain in Libya nor other Western expatriates appeared to be in any personal danger.

800 Americans Remain

Western diplomats said they believe that there are as many as 800 U.S. citizens here who have ignored the Reagan Administration’s legal ban against Americans living and working in Libya--an order imposed after the United States accused Kadafi of complicity in the terrorist attacks at Rome and Vienna airports last December that killed 20 people, including five Americans and four terrorists.

Estimates of the number of Americans here vary widely, with some reports from Washington putting the exile population much lower.

“I don’t think they (the Libyans) have any reason to be hostile,” one diplomat said. “The most they could do is put the Americans on the next plane out, but that isn’t very likely. They need them.”

Americans have long provided expert help in the Libyan oil industry as well as in ambitious model-farm developments in several parts of the country.

Diplomats said that although most Americans obeyed the Reagan order to leave Libya in early January, some have drifted back to their old jobs here in recent weeks, hoping that they will be protected from prosecution back home by an obliging Libyan arrangement to leave their passports unstamped, thus avoiding evidence that they have returned to Libya.