Soviets Warned Kadafi of Raid, Cairo Magazine Says

The editor of a state-owned magazine said in Saturday’s edition that the Soviet Union warned Libya an hour in advance of the U.S. air raids, giving Libyan pilots time to fly their planes to safety in Sudan.

Salah Montaser, editor of Egypt’s October magazine, wrote in his weekly editorial that only four or five Libyan planes were damaged in the April 15 raids on Tripoli and Benghazi. President Reagan has said the raids were ordered in retaliation for what he claimed was Libya’s support of international terrorism.

Montaser, attributing his report to sources he said were close to the Reagan Administration, wrote that U.S. officials informed the Soviet Union an hour before the pre-dawn raids began and that the Soviets immediately warned Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi.

In Los Angeles, national security adviser John M. Poindexter told reporters Saturday before flying with Reagan to Honolulu that the United States did not inform the Soviets in advance of the raids.

“The notification was either simultaneously or after the beginning of the attack. It was not before,” he said.

Poindexter refused comment when asked about reports that the Soviets may have given Libya as much as an hour’s advance warning. He said the only way the United States would have such information would be through intelligence, and “we don’t comment on intelligence matters.”

Montaser wrote that informing the Soviets of the impending raid was one of the “biggest American mistakes” in undertaking the attack. The warning also enabled Kadafi to move to another camp at Aziziya and escape unharmed, Montaser said. But in an interview with London’s Sunday Today newspaper, Kadafi was quoted as saying he was in his house with his family in Tripoli during the raids in which his 15-month old adopted daughter reportedly was killed and two young sons were wounded.

Montaser wrote that most of the casualties were civilians and he said from a military point of view, the raid was not worth the cost.