Over twenty opposition groups exist outside Libya. The mostimportant in 1987 was the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF),formed in October 1981, and led by Muhammad Yusuf al Magariaf,formerly Libyan ambassador to India. The LNSF was based in Sudanuntil the fall of the Numayri regime in 1985, after which itsoperations were dispersed. The LNSF rejected military anddictatorial rule and called for a democratic regime withconstitutional guarantees, free elections, free press, andseparation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicialbranches. The group published a bimonthly newsletter,AlInqadh (Salvation).
The LNSF claimed responsibility for the daring attack onQadhafi's headquarters at Bab al Aziziyah on May 8, 1984. Althoughthe coup attempt failed and Qadhafi escaped unscathed, dissidentgroups claimed that some eighty Libyans, Cubans, and East Germansperished. According to various sources, the United States CentralIntelligence Agency trained and supported the LNSF before and afterthe May 8 operation. Domestically, some 2,000 people were arrestedand 8 were hanged publicly. The LNSF also organized the April 1984demonstration in London in which a British policewoman was killedby a Libyan diplomat, leading to the breaking of diplomaticrelations between Tripoli and London.
Another opposition group, the Libyan Liberation Organization,based in Cairo, was formed in 1982. In 1987 it was led by AbdulHamid Bakkush, a prime minister during the Idris monarchy. In midNovember 1984, Libyan officials were greatly embarrassed by theirpremature claims of responsibility for the assassination ofBakkush. In fact, the entire operation was elaborately stagemanaged by the Egyptian security forces, who produced a very muchalive Bakkush on television along with members of the four-man hitsquad, which reportedly consisted of two British citizens and twoMaltese.
Al Burkan (The Volcano), a highly secretive and violentorganization that emerged in 1984, has been responsible for theassassination of many Libyan officials overseas. For instance, itclaimed responsibility for the death of the Libyan ambassador inRome in January 1984, and, a year later, for the assassination ofthe Libyan Information Bureau chief, also in Rome. A Libyanbusinessman with close ties to Qadhafi was shot dead on June 21,1984, in Athens during the visit of Abdul Salam Turayki, Libya'ssecretary of foreign liaison.
Less well-known opposition groups outside Libya were the LibyanConstitutional Union, the pro-Iraqi Libyan National Movement, theLibyan National Democratic Grouping led by Mahmud Sulaymon alMaghrabi, Libya's first postrevolutionary prime minister, and AlHaq, a rightist pro-monarchy group.
The opposition groups outside Libya remained disunited andlargely ineffective. Divided ideologically into such groups asBaathists (see Glossary), socialists, monarchists, liberals, andIslamic fundamentalists, they agreed only on the necessity ofoverthrowing the Qadhafi regime. An initial step towardcoordination was taken in January 1987 when eight oppositiongroups, including the Libyan National Movement, the Libyan NationalStruggle Movement, and the Libyan Liberation Organization, agreedto form a working group headed by Major Abd al Munim al Huni, aformer RCC member who has been living in Cairo since the 1975 coupattempt that was led by another RCC member, Umar Muhayshi. Someobservers speculated that because Huni appeared to be acceptable toall opposition groups and in view of his close ties to themilitary, he may well be the man most likely to succeed Qadhafi. Ifthe Iranian experience offered any insights, the hallmark of thepost-Qadhafi era would be a bloody power struggle between erstwhilecoalition groups of diverse ideological beliefs. By early 1987, itwas by no means clear which faction might emerge as the ultimatevictor, should Qadhafi be toppled. It must be kept in mind,however, that the Libyan leader has outlasted many of his enemies,both foreign and domestic.
To deal with outside opposition, the Libyan regime continuedits controversial policy of physical liquidation of opponents. OnMarch 2, 1985, the GPC reiterated its approval of the policy of"the pursuit and physical liquidation of the stray dogs." Duringthe 1985 wave of violence, a number of Libyans living abroad werekilled or wounded. Among the casualties were former ambassadorEzzedin Ghadamsi, seriously wounded in Vienna on February 28;businessman Ahmad Barrani, killed in Cyprus on April 2; anotherbusinessman, Yusuf Agila, wounded in Athens on October 6; andGibril Denali, a thirty-year-old student living in the FederalRepublic of Germany (West Germany) as a political refugee,assassinated in Bonn on April 6. The liquidation policy continuedinto 1987 when Muhammad Salim Fuhaymah, an executive committeemember of the Libyan National Organization, was assassinated inAthens on January 7.
The physical liquidation policy has drawn universalcondemnation. However, the impact of the policy, should not beexaggerated. During 1984, there were 4 assassinations of Libyansabroad and between 20 and 120 executions internally. ScholarLillian Craig Harris, writing in late 1986, stated that since 1980twenty anti-Qadhafi Libyans had been assassinated abroad.
Data as of 1987