In 1986, the U.S. military ran an operation called El Dorado Canyon in Tripoli, Libya. U.S. forces dropped 60 tons of bombs and missiles on Libya's military facilities. During the bombing campaign, a number of Soviet government specialists were stationed in Tripoli. They were woken up by the noise of the bombing campaign, and went out to their hotel balconies to watch. Makhmudov was one of these men. At that time, his job was to servea as an Arabic-Persian translator.