Libya bombs its former stronghold in north Chad

OUADI DOUM, Chad Routed in the sands of northern Chad, Libya haslaunched a series of air attacks against its lost desert strongholdin an attempt to erase the record of its humiliating defeat.

Libyan bombers, their powerful engines muffled by the altitude,give little warning of their arrival, appearing suddenly overheadwith their delta wings glinting in the central African sunlight.

The Soviet-built Sukhoi and MiG planes at first resemble glidersrather than planes of war as they soar with eerie silence over thevast, uninhabited desert that surrounds Libya's former air base atOuadi Doum, captured by Chad on March 22.

But a series of loud thuds followed by great clouds of sand androck break the uneasy calm as 1,000-pound bombs crash into the barrenground.

Libya, despite its rout on the ground, still controls the skiesof northern Chad and has made bombing raids almost every day from itsbase at Maaten as-Sarra in an attempt to destroy the aircraft andequipment it left behind.

Chad has no combat air force and France bars its own aircraftstationed in the south from flying beyond a defense perimeter thatstops short of the desert region, known as "useless Chad" to formerFrench colonizers.

When the first group of foreign reporters visited the area lastweek, pairs of Libyan bombers made three separate raids against theOuadi Doum base, attacking in the morning and afternoon withclockwork regularity.

White tracers etched the sky as Chadian troops tried to hit thehigh-flying bombers, which rarely descend below 20,000 feet for fearof the Chadians' shoulder-held SAM-7 and U.S.-supplied Red-Eyeanti-aircraft missiles.

Chadian soldiers have shot down two planes in the area in thelast three weeks and proudly escorted foreign reporters to view thecharred remnants of a Czechoslovak-made L-39 light bomber downed onApril 7.

Its wreckage lies scattered for hundreds of yards around ablackened central crater.