3rd U.S. Carrier Expected to Join Forces Off Libya

The Navy is sailing the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea and will soon have three carriers deployed in the central Mediterranean north of Libya, Reagan Administration sources said Monday.

The 90,000-ton Enterprise, the Navy’s largest carrier, was expected to complete the trip of about 20 hours through the canal by early today, then sail westward to join the Coral Sea and the America, two carriers that saw action off Libya two weeks ago during the U.S. bombing strikes at terrorist targets in Tripoli and Benghazi.

The Enterprise will eventually replace the Coral Sea on station in the Mediterranean, but all three carriers, accompanied by frigates, cruisers and destroyers, are expected to remain in the area for at least two weeks. The Coral Sea’s assignment to the region was extended indefinitely before April 15, the date U.S. warplanes raided Libya from the carriers and from air bases in Britain.

A military source, speaking on condition that his name not be mentioned, said the three warships probably will operate in the central Mediterranean until President Reagan returns to the United States from his current trip to Asia.

The passage of U.S. warships through the Suez Canal at this moment is considered a sensitive matter--for security reasons and because of concern for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s political problems.

For such reasons, the Enterprise and its five escort vessels, including the nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers Truxtun and Arkansas, were moving northward through the canal from the Red Sea mostly at night.

While Mubarak is considered a U.S. ally in the Middle East, the support he shows for the United States costs him standing among Islamic fundamentalists and other opponents of U.S. policies. Recognizing this, one well-informed source said that the use of the Egyptian canal by the U.S. Navy two weeks after the raids on Libya is “a problem for him (Mubarak).”

“He’d rather it just happened in the dark,” the source said.

No Carrier in Indian Ocean

The Enterprise’s departure from the Indian Ocean leaves that area of the world without a major U.S. warship, the sources said, although several vessels remain on station there.

While one source said he sees no indication that Enterprise’s assignment to the central Mediterranean heralds renewed military action, the arrival of the ship, with about 85 aircraft, will put about 235 warplanes within quick striking distance of the Libyan coast.

The deployment of the Enterprise, another source said, is “more related to relief for the Coral Sea and a desire to keep two carriers in the Mediterranean rather than anything more ominous.”

Egypt in the past has objected to the passage of nuclear-powered ships through the Suez Canal, showing what one Navy source said was “a fair amount of sensitivity.”

In this instance, however, military planners chose to send the carrier through the canal rather than take the longer time required to send it around Africa and into the Mediterranean by way of the Atlantic, a voyage that usually takes 21 days.