Magazine says international companies helped Libya build poison-gas plant
April 14, 1996
Web posted at: 8:00 p.m. EDT (0000 GMT)BONN, Germany (CNN) -- Swiss, Italian, Chinese and Thai companies provided Libya with components for a massive poison-gas factory whose construction could be finished this year, a German news magazine said Sunday.
Citing German intelligence, Spiegel said Swiss firms provided gas-purification equipment, mixers and other components and Italy, China and Thailand delivered components as well. Spiegel did not identify any of the companies.
During his trip to Egypt last week, U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry hinted that Washington could order a military strike against the factory, which the U.S. government says is being built beneath mountain in Tarhunah 40 miles southeast of Tripoli.
Libya denies it is building a chemical weapons plant. Libyan Foreign Minister Omar Mustafa al-Montasser said Perry was mounting a disinformation campaign against Libya and warned that his country would rather fight than give in to what he called U.S. bullying.
Libyan engineers told an Egyptian reporter that the underground project is an irrigation system.
In a story published Saturday, the Egyptian government daily Al-Ahram said Libyan authorities claimed two 200-foot-long tunnels under the mountains at Tarhunah are part of Libya's Great Man-made River scheme, a multi-billion dollar project to pump water from the south of the country to the Mediterranean coast.
The engineers said the tunnels, one carrying drinking water and the other irrigation water, would supply Tripoli.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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