News In Brief
| London
In Tripoli, some 'give' in Libyan-British crisis
Some progress appeared to have been made in the diplomatic crisis between Libya and Britain Wednesday, when Libyan ''revolutionary guards'' allowed personnel in the British Embassy in Tripoli, including the British ambassador, to leave the building. The embassy had been sealed off for some 24 hours.
But there had been no change, as this issue went to press, in the standoff in London, where the British kept the Libyan Embassy sealed off at gunpoint.
The crisis began Tuesday when a hail of machine-gun fire from a window in the Libyan mission here left one dead and some 10 wounded. Home Secretary Leon Brittan said Tuesday night that the shooting was a ''barbaric outrage.''
Police allowed food and drink to be carried inside the embassy Wednesday while they tried to coax the Libyans out by telephone.
Libya warned Britain not to storm the embassy. ''An act of this magnitude will not go unanswered by the Libyan people, who know how to avenge themselves, '' it said.
The Foreign Office, in turn, strongly protested to Libya, calling the shooting ''an outrageous, murderous onslaught.'' But it also said it wanted to resolve the crisis peacefully.
