History
Prior to June 1970, the United States Air Force (USAF) used the facility, then known as Wheelus Air Base.
Subsequently, the facility was known as Okba Ben Nafi Air Base, a Libyan People's Air Force (LPAF) installation. In 1986, the base was a primary target of Operation El Dorado Canyon (see below), a US retaliatory strike against Libya for Libyan missile attacks on US aircraft over Libya's claimed territorial waters in the Mediterranean Sea and alleged Libyan involvement in alleged terrorist attacks on US servicemen in Europe.
Read more about this topic: Mitiga International Airport
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“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I believe my ardour for invention springs from his loins. I can’t say that the brassiere will ever take as great a place in history as the steamboat, but I did invent it.”
—Caresse Crosby (1892–1970)