ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>CARL ROCHELLE, GENERAL ASSIGNMENTS CORRESPONDENT: On January 4, 1989, some of the -- some of the hostilities that had been taking place between the United States and Libya on the surface actually broke out into fighting when U.S. Navy planes shot down Libyan jet fighters.</s>RALPH BEGLEITER, FMR. CNN CORRESPONDENT: That was another example of how Libya and the United States were always at high-tension mode. There was never a moment when the United States and Libya felt they could just relax and chill out a bit.</s>ROCHELLE: Libya would say perhaps that it was unprovoked, but they did, in fact, according to the Navy officials, they did threaten U.S. aircraft.</s>UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: The Libyans have repeated the allegations that their pair of planes were unarmed and heavily outnumbered by U.S. forces, as the U.S. claim that the Libyan pilots switched on their attack radars, they say now that it's normal for pilots to fly with their radars functioning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: Good hit, good hit on one.</s>ROCHELLE: One of the really interesting things about this videotape that the Pentagon gave us is, when we put it on the air, the phones started ringing off the hook at the Pentagon. All the other networks, everyone had seen that footage and said, you know, we've got to have it, we've got to have it!</s>BEGLEITER: I don't think the incident itself had lasting consequences, but it does reflect a continuing tension in the north African region over Libya's behavior, and is some ways, Muammar Qadhafi is one of the last remaining pro-communist, pro-Soviet, anti- Israeli dictators in the Middle East.
CNN20: Libyan Fighters Shot Down, January 4, 1989