Reply #6: It's longer than that

[jakeXT]

Military action

Three weeks later, on 8 May 1984, NFSL's commandos took part in a daring attack on Gaddafi's headquarters at Bab al-Aziziyah barracks near Tripoli in an attempt to assassinate the Libyan leader. The attack was thwarted when the group's leader, Ahmed Ibrahim Ihwas, was captured when trying to enter Libya at the Tunisian border. Although the coup attempt failed and Gaddafi escaped unscathed, dissident groups claimed that some eighty Libyans, Cubans, and East Germans had been killed in the operation. However, some 2,000 people were arrested in Libya following the attack, and eight were hanged publicly.

NFSL continued its efforts to topple Gaddafi and formed the Libyan National Army (LNA), after a group of soldiers, taken prisoner by Chad during the Chadian-Libyan conflict, defected from the Libyan Army and joined the NFSL in 1987. The LNA was later evacuated from Chad after the President Hissène Habré was overthrown by one of his former officers, Idriss Déby, who was backed by Gaddafi.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Front_for_the_Salvation_of_Libya


But how spontaneous was this rebellion?
The Congressional Research Service in a 1987 analysis of the Libyan opposition wrote:

“Over twenty opposition groups exist outside Libya. The most important in 1987 was the Libyan National Salvation Front (LNSF) formed in October 1981….The LNSF claimed responsibility for the daring attack on Gaddafi’s headquarters at Bab al Aziziyah on May 8, 1984. Although the coup attempt failed and Gaddafi escaped unscathed, dissident groups claimed that some eighty Libyans, Cubans and East Germans perished.”

Significantly the CRS cited various “sources” as early as 1984 which claimed “. . . the United States Central Intelligence Agency trained and supported the LNSF before and after the May 8 operation”.

http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2011/03/dennis_kucinich_speaks_to_cong.html